Griffin Stresses Need for Partnership to Prepare for Biological/Chemical Terrorism

By Ed Somers
April 17, 2000

“It has become clear to me that mayors have a responsibility to possess the basic information needed to manage all of their resources in the event of a weapon of mass destruction attack, and perhaps most importantly, know what to say, and what not to say, when the cameras reach our doors,” said Reno Mayor Jeff Griffin in his address to a major Department of Defense conference on April 6 in Washington.

Griffin, who chairs the Criminal and Social Justice Committee of The U.S. Conference of Mayors, added, “And in that our actions, correct or incorrect, will have major impacts on national security and health, it is the responsibility of the federal government to assist our training efforts and ensure that federal resources are available for event management.”

The “Medical Initiatives Conference - Weapons of Mass Destruction 2000” was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, and The U.S. Army Surgeon General.

Griffin pointed out that, “As the public leaders of our communities and managers of local police, fire and emergency response personnel, mayors have always understood the need for disaster preparedness. Most cities have detailed plans for dealing with floods, tornadoes, fires, hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural disasters.”

Several years ago, the Conference of Mayors began to discuss the potential impacts of a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) event in a city. The Conference has held many discussions at annual and leadership meetings, and special sessions, and has met with Attorney General Janet Reno and other top Justice Department officials to develop a training curriculum and ensure that mayors have the tools needed to prepare for and respond to a WMD incident.

Mayor Griffin said that after all of the meetings and special sessions, two facts became very clear.

“First, as in a natural disaster, mayors will lead the ‘first response’ team in a WMD event. Every expert we have met with assures us that it will be thirty-six to seventy-two hours before federal resources enter our community once we discover a WMD attack, with state resources coming to bear in a somewhat shorter time-frame if we are lucky.”

“Second, preparing for and dealing with a WMD event is very, very different from a natural disaster.”

For example, in a WMD event, mayors will almost assuredly be dealing with event management and event consequence at the same time, in that people will be dying while others are just becoming infected or impacted by the event.

Mayor Griffin added that, “in an unannounced WMD attack, we have learned that it will be the ‘public health care system’ that will see the first indications of an attack.”

As Griffin stated, mayors do not control the ‘public health care system.’ With the exception of some city and county publicly-owned and operated hospitals, the general public’s health care needs are met by private institutions. “Therefore, it is essential that these doctors and medical practitioners are trained to be able to identify a WMD event, particularly a biological incident.” Griffin said.

He added that it is the local health departments that will be alerted by these doctors at the onset of a WMD event. The Conference of Mayors has adopted policy that specifically supports increased funding for a network which would improve a local health department’s response to biological emergency by providing resources for the coordination of services between the health department and other essential local agencies.

“We know that once a WMD event hits one of our cities, we will need massive amounts of help... It is clear from modeling examples that the ‘public health care system’ will be quickly overrun by even a modest WMD event in a city of almost any size... Hospitals and doctors offices will be overrun with not only the sick, but those who fear contamination,” Griffin said.

He added, “I expect the logical question to come: When are the M.A.S.H. units going to arrive? Simply stated, we are going to need doctors, we are going to need nurses, we are going to need medicine and we are going to need beds.”

In addition, Griffin said that mayors may be forced to shut down airports, ports, trains and highways, and use perhaps the most feared of all public safety tools: a quarantine.

In terms of city needs, Griffin said, “In addition to the protective equipment needs of our emergency response personnel — which are extensive — our public health advisors have identified the concern of communication system inter-operability as a major concern. We are going to need major financial assistance to ensure that fire, police, emergency response, and command and control centers are capable of talking to each other in the event of a WMD attack, as well as communicate with both public and private health care providers. We also need to be able to link regional, state and federal partners into the emergency response communication system.”

In ending his remarks, Mayor Griffin said, “No matter what we think about who should be in charge of preparing for and responding to a WMD event, the mayor is the one person in a community whom our citizens will demand address the issue. We will be called on to give advice, to tell everyone it is going to be OK, to restore calm.”

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