Michael Nutter released his emergency management plan. Hey, amazing timing, what with KYW 1060 picking up the story (which was in US News and World Report some time ago) about that book that says if terrorists bombed the Sunoco refinery during a Phillies/Mets game, it would cause a toxic plume to drift over the stadium, killing the entire staff of The Next Mayor. As well as many others.
As a colleague of mine at the Daily News points out, the author of the scary book didn't write up a Phillies/Diamondbacks showdown on a Wednesday night or something. He picked a Mets game. On Friday night. With 40,000 fans in the house.
Anyway, in Nutter's detailed plan -- and I found thinking about these things surprisingly unsettling, I wonder if he did? -- he addresses the Sunoco-nightmare scenerio.
He says there's $201.2 million expected in grants from the Department of Homeland Security in fiscal 2007 for its Port Security Grant Program. He wants to use some of that to strengthen port security (there's already a 10-year plan for this, he notes) and bring the port more into cooperation with local emergency-management agencies.
He also wants to pull private and public agencies together to better prepare for an emergency (here's something else alarming: "Evacuation routes are not marked nor widely known, even among some City officials," the report says) and be prepared to offer businesses credentials for essential employees after a disaster, to speed economic recovery.
He also commits to giving fire, police and other first responders radios that actually work in SEPTA tunnels. (Next time you ride the subway, think about the fact that the cops' radios don't work down there. Only SEPTA radios.) Also, radios used by the various first responders and by transit agencies don't always communicate with each other. Nutter has his eye on a piece of a different, $1 billion, Homeland Security grant to get us a system that does communicate.
He would build a new emergency Joint Operations Center -- which, he specifies, would be "outside of Center City" (and probably not at Citizens Bank Park either) that would house the Office of Emergency Management, the Emergency Operations Center, 911, police and fire dispatch, the bomb squad (!) a public health lab (!!) and a backup for SEPTA operations.
(Look, I am no wimp -- I was in the city, at my desk, for 9/11, 9/12 and 9/13 -- but by this point, I was thoroughly freaked out. If there's an emergency bad enough to require full activation of this center, there is no WAY I am getting on a SEPTA train during it.)
Anyway. A similar center in Washington cost $80 million. Nutter proposes spending $30 million in unspent funds from PICA bonds for it, and seeking federal money. He gets props throughout his plan for identifying funding sources, but boy, should we spend that PICA money on this?
Other things I learned...Nutter says the Mayor doesn't have explicit permission in the city code to evacuate the city, though when Mayor Street told everyone to get out of the highrises on 9/11 it sure worked. He wants the city Health Code to deal explicitly with mass quarantine or shelter-in-place situations (that is, when you are told to stay home to avoid spreading something horrific).
He also wants the city to be prepared for caring for mass housing or feeding needs, which, sadly, is something that mayors have to think about post-Katrina.
Actually, it's pretty sad that mayors have to think about all of this, but that's the world we're in.