These precautions are part of San Jose and Santa Clara County's extensive emergency response system funded by $61 million in homeland security funding that's flowed into the area since 9/11, and aims to prepare the region in speedy emergency response and effective prevention tactics.
Effective Response
The Silicon Valley Regional Interoperability Project (SVRIP) is Santa Clara's latest emergency response development. SVRIP is a multifaceted emergency response program that includes an emergency radio system that allows police, firefighters and paramedics throughout the area to communicate without dispatchers.
"I think for us this project is essential," said Sheryl Contois, technical services director for the Palo Alto Police Department and vice chair of the Executive Steering Committee for the SVRIP. "This is probably one of our highest priorities in terms of more effectively responding to emergencies and handling calls. We know from the World Trade Center attack, Columbine and Katrina that the need for police and fire to communicate effectively is essential."
The SVRIP was developed before 9/11 and consists of 18 Santa Clara County jurisdictions representing 30 law enforcement, fire and emergency agencies. The SVRIP is currently implementing an integrated voice and data wireless emergency communication system that will allow emergency responders in the Santa Clara jurisdictions -- including state and federal emergency responders -- to communicate easily during an emergency. It will also assist law enforcement agencies in sharing terrorist information, and provide a portal to share information with other regions.
The SVRIP has been selected as a "best practice" site by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and presented its progress to the DHS SAFECOM Program's Emergency Response Council national meeting, saying the system is poised to serve as "a model of interoperability and inter-agency coordination for the United States."
The SVRIP is also piloting a project that will connect a computer-aided dispatch system in the region. Contois said the project is expected to be online in 2007, and will streamline emergency dispatch by identifying the closest resource to an emergency in the area.
"This will essentially allow us to dispatch more quickly and efficiently," Contois said, adding that if Milpitas is closer to an incident than San Jose, then the emergency call will be routed automatically to Milpitas. "Right now," she said, "there is no capability to do that anywhere in the country for command and control."
SVRIP research shows that "no other interoperability model addresses day-to-day operational needs, while ensuring first responders can interoperate during a regional disaster or response to a terrorist event."
Preventive Technology
DHS grants have also helped renovate the Santa Clara Public Health Laboratory, which now serves four neighboring counties with less advanced facilities. A bioterrorism-prevention grant helped buy a $24,000 microscope, a polymerase chain-reaction machine and a salaried microbiologist for the lab. The trio can identify anthrax, tularemia, bubonic plague and other bioterrorism agents within hours rather than days. The lab also has a high-security section -- accessible only with FBI security clearance -- that contains dangerous viruses.
Although the high-powered, high-priced microscope may seem too costly, it is needed every day to test blood samples for rabies, and to detect salmonella bacteria and cases of the West Nile virus, said Joy Alexiou, spokeswoman for the Santa Clara County Public Health Department.
"It allows us to process larger volumes of information in a quicker amount of time, so if it was a manmade event, we would know sooner what we were dealing with and be able to more effectively deal with it," Alexiou said. "That's the goal."
Bioterrorism grants have also funded biohazard suits with protective booties and goggles for local police officers, who carry the suits in their patrol cars.
The DHS also helped fund a new alert network for the Santa Clara health lab, which warns doctors of impending crises, like a food-poisoning outbreak. The county also purchased four field treatment trailers and seven hospital surge trailers, and interspersed them throughout Santa Clara County to prepare for a mass casualty incident. The county coroner's office bought a mobile morgue that allows the processing of bodies at a disaster scene, which can prevent the spread of disease.
DHS grants have also funded detection equipment for fire trucks in Santa Clara County that can identify chemical or radiological weapons. Armed guards patrol a Santa Clara water treatment plant 24 hours a day.
Cover Your Bases
With all the new disaster response technology and equipment, first responders need additional training in the area.
In June 2006, the Emergency Medical Services Agency for Santa Clara County completed the Multiple Patient Management Plan, which outlines multiple-victim, multiple-casualty and mass-casualty practices in the county. The plan's primary goal is to provide and outline practices for management in the event of a disaster, and to integrate the new emergency management technology that has come to the area.
"We really put together a comprehensive and credible plan of investment for Santa Clara County," said Bruce Lee, director of the county's Emergency Medical Services Agency. "We have put this together in such a way to cover many bases, and add capacity and resources to our existing system."
Recently two full-scale exercises were conducted to train for a chemical attack and a bomb detonation involving area hospitals and public safety agencies in the county. The county has also conducted training in hazardous materials, command and weapons of mass destruction. The Santa Clara County Office of Emergency Services (OES) hosted an exercise in 2006 to prepare for a catastrophic earthquake on the scale of the 1906 temblor that virtually destroyed San Francisco.
Yet the questions remain -- is Santa Clara County more prepared for a terrorist attack or major disaster? And is a terrorist attack on Santa Clara a realistic possibility?
For county officials, a county and city can never do enough to prepare for a disaster, and can never have enough equipment.
"We're never prepared enough, but we're more prepared than we were five years ago," Lee said. "After the large amounts of money started coming in after 9/11, we've had significant improvements in our response potential. Yet when you look at these different scenarios that could affect a large percentage of the area, it's always difficult to respond to."
For the Santa Clara County OES, the successful response to a large-scale disaster will depend on the efforts of emergency response professionals, as well as the efforts of every citizen, said Miguel Grey, emergency services program manager for the county's OES.
To step up citizen effort, the OES is working to educate the public about disaster response. Area residents are being trained in debris retrieval and emergency first aid, but more public outreach is on the way.
"I think we're recognizing more and more that our disaster response must be built from the ground up, and it starts with individuals, families and communities," Grey said. "Something we can really improve on in our county is common public outreach strategy -- we need to put our efforts and resources together, and really reach out to those 2 million people in our population and really grind this message into them, to the point of where, if you live or work in Santa Clara County, you have no choice but to remember these basic things about disaster preparedness. That's really what's going to save a lot of lives -- when people know how to be more resilient and self-sufficient with neighbors helping neighbors."
