HARRISBURG State, federal funding help Pa. beef up for terrorism

Pennsylvania has stronger emergency response capability since Sept. 11, 2001.
HARRISBURG (AP) -- Pennsylvania's homeland-security chief, Keith Martin, had just delivered a thunderous speech encouraging teenagers enrolled in a summer program on first aid and emergency response when he paused to take questions.
One hand went up from among the roughly 50 teens sitting on the marble steps in the state Capitol building's domed Rotunda.
"Who are you?" the boy asked the bright-eyed, silver-haired director of Pennsylvania's Homeland Security Office.
One could forgive the youth for not recognizing Martin: Without a terrorist attack in Pennsylvania since Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism prevention and response -- Martin's main responsibilities -- have had a low profile.
But state officials say a beefed-up anti-terrorism network is coming into sharper focus, two years and hundreds of millions of dollars since the catastrophe on Sept. 11, 2001.
Federal and state funds
With little public or political opposition to such spending, the federal and state money is paying for things such as a bomb-handling robot for Reading and a tripling of the state's laboratory space for analyzing biological and chemical agents.
Even without a terrorist attack to test it, public officials say their ability to react to any kind of disaster, whether flooding or fire, is improving.
"We can call it anti-terrorism, but it just makes Pennsylvania a safer place," said David Sanko, the director of the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency. "The equipment is multipurpose. We'll enhance our terrorism preparedness, but at the same time it will strengthen our ability to respond to all hazards."
All told, Martin and Sanko estimate that Pennsylvania will receive nearly $190 million this year in federal dollars, plus $25 million in state fire grants, to pay for equipment and training for police, ambulance workers, hospitals, firefighters and hazardous-materials teams.
Nine task forces
Of the federal money, about $99 million is coming from the federal Office of Domestic Preparedness to equip, train and coordinate first responders in the state's nine counterterrorism task forces, established in 1999 to group emergency personnel and law enforcement agencies by region.
An additional $40 million in federal funds is expected through grants to fire companies. And $49.5 million has been awarded in grants to help hospitals and public-health officials monitor and prepare for biological and chemical attacks.
The funds are essentially a second wave of homeland security dollars, coming a year or so after the state identified $200 million for similar purposes -- largely federal grants and state-funded projects already under way before the Sept. 11 attacks -- and created a four-person Office of Homeland Security.
The state's budget this year now has built-in homeland security costs -- for example, the nearly $9.7 million cost of paying 100 additional state police officers and 170 new Capitol police and security officers who were hired last year as a result of terrorism concerns.
Emergency-management officials say the money is enough, but that it has to keep flowing.
"While this is a lot of money, at the end of the day, the appetite will outstrip the available funds," Sanko said. "We can do a lot of good things with this federal and state money that's available, but there's still more that needs to be done."
Arthur D. Kaplan, Schuylkill County's emergency management director and the chairman of a seven-county counterterrorism task force in east-central Pennsylvania, agreed.
"Could I tell you that we could use more money?" said Kaplan, whose task force will have at least $3.7 million in federal dollars to spend in the next 18 months. "Sure, but it would be ridiculous to think that there would be enough money just because we need more equipment."
Philly benefits
The Philadelphia region will benefit heavily. The southeast regional counterterrorism task force, which includes Philadelphia and its four suburban counties, will get $14 million in federal funds this year plus what Sanko said could be an additional $20 million or so in federal urban-preparedness grants.
The shopping list includes a computer and software to produce credentials for emergency personnel at a disaster site and a walk-through radioactivity detector.
Hospitals will get $19.6 million to buy such things as isolation or decontamination chambers.
One project coming to fruition is a federally funded disease reporting network that allows each hospital to report more than 52 types of communicable diseases, including viruses such as smallpox that could be indicative of bioterrorism.
The system is newly online, and it will get upgrades this year to increase its reporting and communication capabilities between the state Department of Health and the hospitals.