At week's end a meeting took place in Anniston between local and federal officials over the state of emergency preparedness in Calhoun County.For once progress was made. Local EMA officials and County Commissioners seemed to be moving toward agreement with officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Pentagon on how to respond to an incident or accident at the Anniston Army Depot and on how to carry out a public education campaign about emergency preparedness.
It was heartening to see top Pentagon officials cut through the endless arguing for a change and agree to demands by local officials on such issues as providing additional staffing for the EMA.
Here are people who have stalled on these demands for a long time, but now they, no doubt, want to see these differences solved.
That's good because for far too long this county has been unprepared. The stockpile at the Depot was dangerous before Sept. 11. Now it is even more so and the population is as vulnerable as it has ever been.
So progress was made, items were agreed to, but differences remain. Pentagon and FEMA officials have returned to Washington now to try to obtain funding for many other items local officials are asking for.
We will have an answer on that soon. And we can expect for some of those wants to be granted, such as the full body protective suits. But no one expects the Pentagon to agree to all the demands.
The question is where local officials should draw the line. Many of the items they want are totally legitimate and have been in the asking for quite some time. Some are less so.
A case in point is a recent request by the commission for the federal government to pay $5 million to relocate the main county road building to Fort McClellan. The reasoning, commissioners say, is because the road department would have a vital role during an emergency and needs to be centrally located.
Fair enough. But should our commissioners hold up a public education campaign about emergency preparedness because of it? Absolutely not.
Another snag here is the county's demand for protective hoods. After months of arguing, the Pentagon has agreed to pay for the hoods, with the understanding that local officials would choose which hood they wanted to supply to residents and that the county would accept the liability.
At least two of the commissioners said they would have none of that. Now is that worth holding up the public education campaign? Again no.
But the issue of the hoods is far more complicated than it needs to be. The federal government does not want to accept liability, yet officials in Washington know they are virtually immune to liability. County officials don't want to accept liability even though they know the county has no money. It's hard to get blood out of a turnip, you know.
Anyone who wants to sue — and make no doubt about it, someone will — will go after the manufacturer first.
The answer is for local officials to hire a consultant to advise them on which mask to use. This will give them a better defense against financial liability. It won't, however, do them much good if they are looking to protect themselves from political liability. They are on their own with that one.
Commissioner Eli Henderson said at the close of Friday's meeting that "this is the most productive meeting I have been to yet."
Those are comforting words. Yet they really mean nothing until we have a comprehensive emergency preparedness plan.
