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In the
wake of the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombing,
the President of the United States signed Executive Order
PDD-39 which directed all public safety agencies to work cooperative
in times of domestic terrorism. The order also called for
the FBI to serve as the lead law enforcement agency in these
cases and for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
to serve as the lead agency for the consequence management
side of the incident. FEMA has issued directives to have the
state and local Emergency Management Agencies provide the
immediate response in these events with FEMA support.
While many people ask, “Terrorism,
in Lima?” The answer unfortunately has to be “it
could happen here”. The Allen County EMA has been aggressive
in this area sending as many first responders as possible
to special training in the area of Weapons of Mass Destruction
(WMD), that is chemical, ordnance, biological, and radiological
weapons.
Allen County has taken the lead in the northwest
Ohio region as far as the number of trained personnel available
to respond to a WMD incident in our area. That training is
continuing and increasing as the Allen County EMA strives
to ensure that as many law enforcement, fire, and medical
personnel as possible receive the highest level of training
necessary.
Currently a special task force is operating
in Allen County consisting of law enforcement, fire, health,
medical, hospital, elected leaders and emergency management
to develop a comprehensive Terrorism/WMD Response Plan. Local
officials are working together on an ongoing basis with their
state and federal counterparts to make the Allen County plan
a model for other communities to follow in their domestic
preparedness plans.
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