Monday, May 09, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

HOMELAND SECURITY: Guide duplicates information

Disaster advice already available in phone book, on Web sites

At a time when Nevada officials are clamoring for more homeland security money, the Metropolitan Police Department plans to spend $1.1 million to print a disaster guide for the public even though the same information is available for free.

The Nevada Commission on Homeland Security last month approved the Police Department's request for federal funding to pay for printing information in the local phone book that informs citizens what to do if Las Vegas is hit by natural disaster or a terrorist attack, or encounters a chemical or biological hazard.

The department originally requested $2 million, but a regional emergency-management committee cut the request in half.

The Home and Neighborhood Disaster Safety and Security, or H.A.N.D.S.S., guide informs residents how to prepare their families, offices, homes, churches, neighborhoods and even pets for a large-scale disaster.

Included are instructions on developing a home-evacuation plan and making a list of emergency phone numbers. It also offers guidance on handling suspicious mail, developing a phone-tree with work colleagues, and taking precautions while traveling by air.

The same information, however, was circulated inside Las Vegas phone books in 2002 after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and is available in English and Spanish on the Police Department's Web site.

Similar -- and in some cases identical -- information is available on several Internet sites for federal agencies and nonprofit organizations, such as the U.S. Department of Justice, the National Crime Prevention Council and the American Red Cross.

"The federal funding is going to be used to reprint that handbook and to put it in the phone book. That's the best way to get it out to as many tourists and residents as we can," Capt. Kathleen Suey, with the department's Homeland Security Division, said last week. "It is critical we focus on prevention as much as we do response. It's important to get this information out to people so they know how to protect themselves."

On the Police Department's Web site, the Homeland Security segment states that much of the information contained in the local H.A.N.D.S.S. program was taken from an instruction manual put out by the Crime Prevention Council, a Washington, D.C.-based national nonprofit organization.

The council, which printed the booklet with federal government funding, mails out the first copy free and charges $1 for each additional copy, council spokeswoman Jean O'Neil said. Pamphlets that offer much of the same advice are also available free from the American Red Cross office on East Flamingo Avenue.

Suey acknowledged the information is available elsewhere but said it's important to regularly reinforce the importance of disaster-preparedness and the phone book is a good way to convey that information. Not everybody has Internet access, and many people are not going to go out of their way to get the information, she said.

The information is expected to be printed on regular phone book paper and included in the January 2006 edition, Suey said.

"What we tried to do was condense the information on questions we are asked constantly into a handbook. ... Groups are constantly asking us what to do in this situation and that situation, or what should we do when the threat level goes to orange."

However, Randolph Hall, co-director of the University of Southern California's Center for Homeland Security, a research center funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said phone books are not the appropriate way to distribute the information.

"Technology trends are making the phone book a less important way to disseminate information," Hall said.

"I do think preparedness of the public is an important issue, but the question is what is the best way to do it," he said. "It's not a matter of putting out something in the phone book, but a national awareness campaign."

The Police Department's request for the federal funding was approved by the Clark County Local Emergency Planning Committee, a group of emergency planning officials from the county and Southern Nevada cities.

Afterward, the state Commission on Homeland Security approved the request along with about $27 million in other homeland security requests from state agencies, counties and Indian tribes in Nevada.

The requests include funding for various types of emergency response equipment, vehicles, supplies, training and specialized suits for emergency response personnel.

Commission Chairman Dale Carrison said the disaster guide is a good use of the federal funding.

Carrison pointed out that such a guide would have been helpful during the anthrax scare that swept the country after the Sept. 11 attacks. Many local residents, he said, were calling emergency personnel every time they came across a white, powdery substance, he said.

"It covers everything. It's an all-hazard approach," Carrison said.

Southern Nevada fire and police departments, the county Health District, the county coroner and other county agencies requested $89 million in federal funds, but a subcommittee of the Local Emergency Planning Committee earlier this year scaled down the requests to about $20 million.

Rather than closely examine each request and gauge its merit, the subcommittee members simply cut from the bottom of each agency's priority list, said subcommittee chairwoman Carolyn Levering, an administrator with the county Office of Emergency Management.

Had the subcommittee approved the department's original $2 million request, the subcommittee would have had to cut requests for equipment, training and other important resources, she said.

"Did things get cut out that that $1 million could have gone to? Perhaps. I don't think we are missing out on any life-saving opportunities," Levering said. "The million dollars we funded to Metro is nothing to sneeze at. It's a lot of money that could have been used for something else."