Remember: our rules allow pointed disagreement, but require respectful discussion.
--
Michael Hohmann wrote:
> Rosa Fields responds, "a look at the
> evacuation plans for any major municipality around a nuclear
> plant indicates that it is unreasonable to expect such a plan to
> have any significant meaning in the event of a real catastrophe."
> _____
> Exactly. In any major disaster like a terrorism incident, the city's
> emergency preparedness plan will prove largely useless and ineffective. For
> the mayor to raise terrorism scenarios as a some mechanism to measure
> leadership capability, thereby implying she has been tested, is equally
> useless and ineffective.
Fatalism and defeatism may not be the best approaches to adverting
catastrophe. Why plan for floods, if they're God's will? Do we really
need a person on the lifeboat shouting, "We're all gona die, we're all
gona die."
On the other hand, as the Pioneer Planet reports:
"The city also has had an emergency plan, which was put in place
shortly after last Tuesday's attacks. That planning is evident, most
obviously in the tightened security at Minneapolis City Hall. There
are no current plans to lighten that security."
http://www.pioneerplanet.com/news/mtc_docs/137904.htm
At least we can be sure that all of the politicians in City Hall are
safe. :-)
It is fair to ask whether the risk of an attack on
Minneapolis is at a level where it makes any sense to
budget for the possibility. To do so requires the analysis
of various scenarios and requires one to think like
a terrorist (which I don't seem to have much problem
doing; scary thought). One of the major goals of the
WTC attack was to show that we are as vulnerable as
citizens of third world countries and to make us more
fearful and weaken our support for certain policies
in the Middle East. The next step in such a campaign is
to show that ANY city in the U.S. can be attacked.
Given that Mpls is one of the largest in the country and
one of the most propionate in the Middle increases our
chances of being selected.
Being a financial conservative I am reluctant to spend
money on contingencies that might never occur, therefore
the goal is design preventive measures that have secondary
benefits. For example, as someone on the list noticed there
seems to be little regulation of truck traffic downtown.
Therefore I would like to suggest that daytime deliveries
be handled by smaller, city licensed, (bobtail) trucks and
deliveries by large trucks be limited to nighttime hours. Such
a plan would reduce the amount of downtown traffic which
would be a pleasant secondary benefit.
I'd also like to suggest that we increase the number of canine
units. Is it possible to train a dog to both search for suspects
and detect bombs? If so, we can increase public safety and
prevent disaster at the same time. I think that it would be
a good idea to have canine units both at the airport and downtown
24/7.
As Cam Gordon has suggested that there are conventional technologies
that can make the Fire Department more effective. I believe that
much more can be done. And, just because your politics are
liberal, you should not shy away from discussing effective policing
methods.
I have other suggestions about how the city can be more prepared
for disaster, but I'm still waiting for the candidates to put forward
some of their own suggestions. There are a number of actions
that can be taken at the state level which the city council can lobby
for.
Michael Atherton
Prospect Park
>
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