Homeland Security: Bay Area Top Terror Target

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Homeland Security: Bay Area Top Terror Target

POSTED: 4:59 pm PDT July 18, 2007

UPDATED: 6:43 pm PDT July 18, 2007

On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security designated the Bay Area as one of the six urban regions in the country most at risk for terrorist attacks.The announcement came on the same day Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced who would receive nearly $750 million in anti-terror grants.Bay Area Named Terror TargetBay Area authorities will receive $34.1 million in fiscal 2007, which ends Sept. 30.The money has to be spent on things that would prevent terror attacks or prepare to respond to a future attack.The 2007 grant is roughly 20 percent more than the 2006 grant, which was $28.3 million.Prior to 2007, the grants were awarded separately to San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose.This year's grant includes those cities.San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom praised the grant funding."We're pleased the Department of Homeland Security has increased our funding, recognizing the Bay Area's importance as a high-risk region," said Newsom.Newsom said in a statement that this year, the Department of Homeland Security created a tiered system for categorizing urban areas based on highest risk.He said the Bay Area was placed in the top tier, along with New York/New Jersey, Los Angeles/Long Beach, Chicago, Houston and the National Capital Region.Newsom said the top tier group competed for $410.8 million. That is 55 percent of the total amount available for the grant program. An early copy of the national list of grant amounts to the 46 recipient cities was obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press:

The Los Angeles/Long Beach area will get $72.6 million in 2007, compared to $80.6 million in 2006.

The San Francisco Bay area will get $34 million in 2007, compared to $28.3 million in 2006.

Anaheim/Santa Ana will get $13.8 million in 2007, compared to $12 million in 2006.

Sacramento will get $4.17 million in 2007, compared to $7.4 million in 2006.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he was concerned about the funding decreases. "We will continue to pressure the federal government to make sure that California's homeland security needs are met," he said in a statement. Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer said she was pleased San Diego and the Bay Area received increases, but disappointed by cuts to Los Angeles and Sacramento. "One minute we have the secretary of Homeland Security saying he has a gut feeling we'll be attacked this summer, and the next minute they are announcing homeland security funding cuts to cities like Los Angeles and Sacramento -- our state capital -- which are potential targets for terrorist attacks," she said. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has repeatedly said cities should not compare one year's award to the next, because the program is designed to provide aid where the need is greatest in order to make the entire country safer from terrorist attacks.

Feds Give $1 Billion To Fix Post-9/11 Radio Problems

The government will distribute nearly $1 billion to states and cities to fix communications problems that still hamper police and fire departments six years after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The biggest state recipients are California with $94 million, Texas with $65 million and New York with $61 million, according to Wednesday's announcement. In certain states, chunks will be specifically set aside for major cities: New York City will get $34.8 million and the Los Angeles/Long Beach area was awarded $22.3 million. Other cities getting specific amounts were: San Francisco Bay area, $14.5 million; Chicago, $16.2 million; Houston, $14.6 million; Jersey City-Newark, $17.5 million; and Washington, $11.9 million. A total of $968 million for interoperable communications grants was announced Wednesday by the heads of the departments of Homeland Security and Commerce, after a review earlier this year found that of 75 major U.S. cities, only six received a top grade in emergency communications. The money, said Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, will answer "the urgent need for firefighters, police and other first responders to be able to communicate effectively with one another." Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the money should get the entire country up to a basic standard of effective emergency communication by 2009 -- but only if the local authorities coordinate with each other and avoid turf fights. "That's not something the federal government can make people do," said Chertoff. "We can put the tools on the table, but the training and the willpower to use the tools has to rest with state and local officials." Congress provided the money in a 2005 bill, seeking to address lingering radio problems exposed when hijacked airliners struck the World Trade Center in New York in 2001. In that chaotic, fast-moving crisis, many firefighters could not hear important radio messages -- including orders to evacuate before the second World Trade Center tower collapsed. Police officers' radios generally worked better, but they had little effective communication with firefighters. Such flaws were evident again in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina knocked out many local rescue workers' communications systems. Since then, Chertoff and others have insisted that agencies need to end any so-called "battle of the badge" rivalries that historically exist between some departments, and, where needed, adopt new technology to handle a natural or man-made disaster. "It's not necessarily the case that everybody's got to run out and buy new equipment," said Chertoff. Rep. Peter King, an occasional critic of Homeland Security's grant decisions, said that in this case "the department is moving in the right direction, but obviously New York still needs more." In January, homeland security officials found that more than 60 percent of the communities studied had the ability to talk to each other during a crisis, but only one in five showed "seamless" use of equipment needed to also communicate with state and federal authorities. Separately Wednesday, Chertoff formally announced grant amounts to 46 U.S. cities considered at highest risk of terror attacks -- a much-scrutinized program that draws cheers and boos every year based on which areas see more money and which see less. Responding to frequent complaints from big cities like New York that contend a greater share should come to them instead of smaller towns, Chertoff hinted that there is more danger lurking in the far corners of the country than people realize. "I think you'd be surprised at the number of comparatively small places where we have people that we are seriously looking at as potential operatives and they're not in cities you think you would find them," he said. "We can't necessarily know whether they would be operational in a big city or if whether they would be operational locally," Chertoff added.

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