Government Is Slow to Offer Safety Plans

[Susan L Gawarecki <loc@icx.net>]

Hi RadSafers,



I'm curious about the emergency plans in place for nuclear-power

plants.  Do they routinely call for evacuation in event of a major

release?  This article suggests what we already know--that evacuation

(especially in heavily developed areas) can cause more harm than good in

most kinds of acute exposure situations.  Do emergency plans offer

instructions on sheltering-in-place to local residents?  Or

recommendations on filtered breathing masks?  If not, maybe it's time to

get realistic.



See the URL below for related links.



Regards,

Susan Gawarecki



Government Is Slow to Offer Safety Plans

 

Local, National Offices Have Yet to Disclose Advice People Could Use in

a Terrorist Attack



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47958-2002Aug5.html 



                   By Barton Gellman

                   Washington Post Staff Writer

                   Tuesday, August 6, 2002; Page A01 



 NEW YORK -- In a closed meeting recently in Manhattan, Police

Commissioner Ray Kelly fielded a question about the city's evacuation

plan in case of

biological, chemical or radiological attack.



"He took a long sip of his tea, and put it down, and said, 'What

evacuation?' " recalled one participant, whose employer forbids him to

be quoted by name.

"He said, 'This is a city of 8 million people. It can't be done.' "



To someone choosing between shelter and flight when contaminants are in

the air, that would be valuable information. National models show that a

sudden

exodus from nearly any big city would leave people gridlocked and

exposed, while safe rooms they could make at home could offer

life-saving protection.

(See guide, Page A6.)



But President Bush and local elected leaders are not providing this

information to the public. For political and bureaucratic reasons,

governments at all levels

are telling far less to the public than to insiders about how to prepare

for and behave in the initial chaos of a mass-casualty event.



Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge often describes another major

attack as "a matter of when, not if," and he said recently it could kill

"vast numbers of

Americans." But he has not yet urged the public to take available steps

that could reduce the toll. When asked, the government is dispensing

generic guidance

with fewer particulars than it puts in pamphlets about hurricanes and

winter storms.



The Bush administration, Congress and some municipal authorities are

preparing themselves more effectively for an attack. Congress, for

example, has

evacuation routes and respiratory protection for every member and aide.

Kelly, who could not be reached for this article after a faxed letter

and telephone

calls, keeps emergency water, food and medical supplies for his office.



Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) and the D.C. government are among the most

aggressive in urging the public to make similar preparations. Since

Sept. 11,

they have printed a brochure in nine languages, as well as in braille,

and have mailed a copy to every household in the District.



Even so, the D.C. Family Preparedness Guide relies on euphemisms that

obscure its meaning, such as "technological hazards" for chemical and

biological

weapons. And according to federal scientists, some of its instructions

are outdated and others are too vague to be effective.



John Sorensen, director of the Emergency Management Center at the

federal government's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, said he

"offered to

develop brochures for chemical weapons, biological agents and so forth"

that would describe in plain language what Americans could do to

prepare. He said

the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the American Red Cross,

which jointly publish the most widely used disaster preparation

materials, "told me,

'We're not in the business of terrifying the public.' " Officials at

both organizations said they prefer to provide advice broad enough for

any disaster, natural or

man-made.



Thomas A. Glass, principal investigator in a National Science Foundation

study of public behavior during emergencies, said the research found

that planners

consistently forecast panic that does not take place and misconceive the

reasons for unsafe behavior. In 10 calamities over seven years, the

public responded

rationally, he said, but "will do all kinds of [unsafe] things because

they haven't been prepared." The widespread assumption "that if you talk

to the public about

what can happen they will panic is borne out by nothing." After

examining hundreds of government contingency plans, Glass said they

commonly treat the

public in the manner "of animal husbandry."



'They're Blowing It Off'



The Bush administration has struggled with public disclosure of risks

and precautions. Political appointees said the White House is reluctant

to do more in part

because it sees its color-coded "homeland security advisory system,"

introduced in March, as a public relations failure. Until recently,

elected officials also

calculated that asking the public to make specific preparations at home

would undercut the political message that government is doing everything

that can be

done.



"Most people want to feel their elected and public safety officials are

dealing with this," said Mayor Michael Guido of Dearborn, Mich., in

comments echoed

by Bush administration officials who declined to be named.



Public opinion research is beginning to suggest that vagueness is a

political liability. David Bell, who is chairman of the Advertising

Council and a friend of

Ridge, brought the public discontent to the attention of the former

Pennsylvania governor. Ridge had earlier asked the council to promote

Bush's new USA

Freedom Corps.



According to written findings made available to The Washington Post, the

Ad Council assembled focus groups during the week of July 8 in Fairfax

County,

Cincinnati and Los Angeles. Participants were "hungry for leadership and

action: to be told what to do to be more prepared, to be assured that

this

preparedness can make a difference" and to "take responsibility upon

themselves."



"I was waiting for somebody to tell me, 'Okay, we have this [potential]

threat,' " complained a focus group member in Cincinnati. " 'If this

happens, then you

need to do A, B and C.' "



When mayors and city managers gathered in New York on July 26 for the

National League of Cities' working group on homeland security, several

of them

expressed frustration. "A red box, blue box, yellow box is not going to

tell us what we need to know," Brenda Barger, mayor of Watertown, S.D.,

told Ridge's

representative across the table. "You know what people are doing?

They're blowing it off. We need to know what to do."



Joshua Filler, an aide to Ridge, replied that the mayor should determine

that for herself. "The community should decide, 'This is what we're

going to do at [risk

advisory level] yellow,' " he said.



Susan Neely, Ridge's director of communications, acknowledged that "that

doesn't seem to be a satisfactory answer to people."



In a telephone interview, Ridge said, "there has been enough concern

expressed by the public" that Washington will have to address it.

"People are seeking

good information. . . . I certainly anticipate talking about it, because

citizens want to know."



So recent is that decision that the National Strategy for Homeland

Security, released July 16, mentioned nothing about self-protection for

individuals and

families.



As long as eight years ago, a federal study concluded that education

about chemical attacks and how to survive them would save lives if the

lethal agents were

released among civilians. Claims that the public would panic at such

advice, the study found, were "shown to be false" and appeared to be

"excuses for not

providing information."



"The stakes are huge," said Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif). "I'm measuring

it in lives. That's a pretty definitive measure."



The Bush administration is considering a television and radio campaign

to be produced for free by the Ad Council, the group responsible for

such iconic

slogans as, "Friends don't let friends drive drunk."



Peggy Conlon, the council's president, said preparedness is "a very

difficult communications challenge. One of the things we're very

sensitive to, and we'll be

testing the heck out of it, is there's a fine balance to strike between

empowering people . . . and scaring them."



Come What May



Early concepts for the public service campaign cast it as marketing for

the government's existing disaster preparation advice, now scattered

across many Web

sites and in brochures that are distributed primarily on request.



FEMA and the Red Cross do not know how many people know about or follow

their guidelines for self-protection at home. Lara Shane, a spokeswoman

for

FEMA, said, "We don't have a way to quantitatively measure how a message

reaches the public, but we try to reach as many people as possible

through our

regional offices, Web sites and partnerships."



Local governments, which the federal agencies rely upon for

distribution, seldom take the initiative.



New York, a prominent terrorist target, especially since the February

1993 World Trade Center bombing, has no printed guide for citizens.

Emergency

Management Commissioner John Odermatt said the city would begin

information efforts at the moment of crisis, when "public awareness is

extremely

important." He said there were too many unknowns to advise residents to

prepare in advance.



Withholding comment on evacuation is a matter of city policy. Untested

internal estimates, created for hurricanes, say as many as 1 million New

Yorkers might

evacuate with advance warning of six to 72 hours. A sudden terrorist

attack would allow far fewer to leave, but Odermatt said he had "no

question" more

would try without waiting for direction. The city does not educate

residents against this impulse, he said, because "we can't pre-plan an

evacuation. It depends

on the incident or the type of incident."



C. Virginia Fields, the Manhattan borough president, commissioned her

own pamphlet and printed 50,000 copies for a borough of 1.5 million. She

has not

mailed it. "That is a victim of the budget crisis," she said. An aide

phoned later to say Fields would tape a radio message this week.



In the District, Williams said that residents "want information, they're

adults, and they can deal with it." His government's family preparedness

guide strikes a

compromise.



It is among the few publications to allude to biochemical terrorism, if

euphemistically. But its advice on the subject is questionable. The

guide tells residents to

"cover your nose and mouth with a wet cloth" in the event of a

"technological hazards emergency." The research at Oak Ridge Laboratory

in the 1990s found

that a wet cloth impeded breathing without benefit. The District also

advises people to use wet towels under doors at home, which the study

found ineffective.



Peter LaPorte, the District's emergency management director, said he did

not know about the Oak Ridge research but "we may need a rewrite to that

section."

He said the District should be praised for seeking a balance between "a

level of seriousness" and spreading fears of a "doomsday scenario."



Nearly all government advice on terrorism sacrifices practical

particulars for an unalarming tone. The usual guidance is to maintain a

three-day supply of food

and water along with a radio, flashlight, batteries and first-aid kit.



The FEMA-produced materials do not mention whether, why or when to

evacuate, and they do not advise the public to keep plastic sheeting and

duct tape

available to prepare a "safe room" if directed by authorities. Federal

research on chemical weapons found life-saving benefits in "simple

taping and sealing,"

which cuts exposure to outdoor agents by a factor of 10.



There is also no published government advice for self-protection in the

event of a nuclear blast or the detonation of a "dirty bomb," which

might scatter

radioactive debris. In the immediate vicinity of an atomic blast, there

would be few, if any, survivors, but for people farther away or downwind

of a dirty bomb,

there are available steps. Jane Orient, president of Doctors for

Disaster Preparedness, said a rule could be offered in a dozen words:

"You need to have mass

between yourself and the source of radiation."



Shane said FEMA avoids discussion of specific threats because "whether

the cause is an earthquake or a terrorist attack, if the building falls,

the consequence

is the same."



Still, FEMA prints and promotes many specialized preparedness

publications -- for earthquake, fire, flood, heat wave, hurricane,

landslide, severe

thunderstorm, tornado, tsunami, volcano, wildfire and winter storm. It

has none with special preparations for the circumstances of a terrorist

attack.



Ridge said FEMA, once it is absorbed into Bush's proposed Department of

Homeland Security, would be "a natural agency to give more specific

[advice] to

prepare for a more specific terrorist event. They're not there yet."



Breathing Lessons



No government agency recommends that people buy respiratory filters in

anticipation of an emergency. Yet a 324-page study at the Oak Ridge lab,

evaluating

more than 1,000 scenarios for evacuation, shelter and respiratory

protection, found that inexpensive filter masks "may be used to

significantly reduce exposure"

to chemical warfare agents and some biological threats, including

anthrax.



There are many threats against which the filters are useless, including

biological weapons absorbed through the skin. But the study said masks

rated "N95,"

which stop 95 percent of particles over 3 microns in diameter, were

valuable against inhaled agents, although improper fit can make them

less so. One kind,

manufactured by 3M, resembles an oversized surgeon's mask and is

available for less than $1.50 each.



Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), a physician and public health expert, has

issued detailed instructions for building a safe room. His book, "When

Every Moment

Counts," recommends that readers buy N95 masks for each family member.

Frist said it would take "eight months to a year" for the executive

branch to make

up its mind on the masks, and that a similar recommendation from Bush or

Ridge might be more alarming to the public.



There is a striking disparity between the public brochures and the

information given to about 200,000 untrained civilians who volunteer for

a FEMA

Community Emergency Response Team.



In simple, bulleted teaching points, instructors conduct the volunteers

on a two-hour tour of the federal government's ironically acronymed

catalogue of terrorist

horrors -- B-NICE, for biological, nuclear, incendiary, chemical and

explosive.



It takes 35 minutes, according to the instructor's guide, to teach the

volunteers 14 ways to recognize an unconventional attack and simple

rules for "self-care

and protective action." For example, they learn the "three factors that

you can apply for your safety: Time, Distance and Shielding." Because

"time is critical" if

exposed to chemical agents, instructors tell them not to wait for

professional help but to undress and decontaminate with water and soap

-- a subject rarely

broached with the general public.



On Capitol Hill, even as the government avoids recommending filtered

breathing masks for private citizens, Harman of California said, "Our

office was

counseled to use them when opening the mail."



Recently, Congress got better masks. In bags delivered to each office,

the sergeant-at-arms provided enough hooded masks to protect every

member of the

Senate and the House and their staffs.



© 2002 The Washington Post Company 

-- 

.....................................................

Susan L. Gawarecki, Ph.D., Executive Director

Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee

102 Robertsville Road, Suite B, Oak Ridge, TN 37830

Toll free 888-770-3073 ~ www.local-oversight.org

.....................................................

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