Published: September 11, 2008 10:46 am      

9/11 changed local emergency response in Clark County

If one main thing has changed for emergency responders since Sept. 11, 2001, it’s communication.

A system that left fire departments out of touch with police and police out of touch with the national guard has slowly become a network where emergency responders are connected following the terrorist attacks that hit New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania seven years ago.

“The nerve-ending is central dispatch,” said Les Kavanaugh, director of the Clark County Emergency Management Agency. “Our whole goal and focus is to keep the public, and emergency responders, informed.”

Improving communication and collaboration in a crisis is a major goal of the federal Department of Homeland Security. And it is a goal at every police, fire and emergency management agency, as well.

Clark County has been very successful in securing grants and awarding them to police and fire agencies for equipment, Kavanaugh said. The county is one of seven in Indiana to be awarded $482,000 from the Department of Homeland Security to build a communications tower.

The county also recently received $252,000 to purchase 800 mhz radios, which is a blend of traditional two-way radio systems and computer-controlled transmitters.

The radios can be shared among different agencies with the aid of computer programming. The fire jurisdiction in the county also received $1 million for radio and communications equipment.

The ability of local, state and federal agencies to exchange information instantaneously improves the likelihood that an emergency — a bomb, a biological weapon or pandemic flu — will impact communities far less and be handled more efficiently, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

The federal 9/11 commission — which was formed to study what happened on that day in 2001 — said that rescuers forced to make instant life-or-death decisions with poor communications equipment contributed to the World Trade Center’s death toll of more than 2,700.

Communication problems also prevented the people in the building from being informed of the evacuation, according to the commission. Widespread communication problems were cited — from mistakes made by 911 dispatchers to the inability of firefighters to communicate with each other.

That is the main reason for the push toward improving communication between local agencies, which are the ones on the ground handling an emergency.

“The big thing since 9/11 is communications,” said Terry Herthel, director of the Floyd County Emergency Management Agency. “And not just between local responders, but also regional and state responders.”

Manpower among local agencies also has increased since 9/11.

The Jeffersonville Police Department received a grant through the Federal Emergency Management Agency to hire four new firefighters. The five-year grant pays the salary and benefits of the new hires, with the city council opting to pick up the tab once the grant ends.

Jeffersonville Fire Chief Tony Harrod said he has regular meetings with the Indiana State Police, the National Guard, and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives to discuss ways to work together. At Thunder Over Louisville — a huge fireworks show which attracts hundreds of thousands of revelers — Harrod has the National Guard come in, and plans to bring in a bomb-sniffing dog for next year’s event.

“It’s a lot better coordination,” he said. “We have a command system — everybody is on the same page. You can dispatch from the main center anyone you need.”

The department also holds exercises to work through operations if there was an emergency situation. Harrod said they are planning a simulation at Indiana-American Water Co. Inc. in October to see how to handle a potential attack on the water supply.

And biological attacks remain a fear for the government and the public, which is why Delynn Rutherford got her job at the Clark County Health Department.

Rutherford’s position as public health preparedness coordinator was created by the government following 9/11, as were similar positions throughout the country. She puts together plans for handling a possible terrorist attack, and, like the fire department, runs through simulations to work out any issues that could arise.

The health department performed an exercise this summer on handling the possibility of a biological attack or pandemic. She set up a distribution location and had the medical professionals and other coordinators go through the motions as if it were a real attack.

“We need to see where bottlenecks and mistakes occur,” Rutherford said. “Then we can fix them before something actually occurs. We are well prepared.”