Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports

How Prepared is Your City?

Aired January 22, 2002 - 19:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Tonight, a special edition of WOLF BLITZER REPORTS: "How Prepared is Your City?"

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: This city is the greatest city in the world. It has the greatest people and a bunch of cowardly terrorists can't make us fearful.

BLITZER: On September 11, civilians became targets, cities became the frontlines in a new war. Where will terrorists strike next? Will they use chemical or biological weapons? Are our cities meeting the challenge?

We've asked the experts. We'll review the rankings. Mayors are now field commanders on the home front. I'll speak live with three of them: Willie Brown of San Francisco, Anthony Williams of Washington, D.C., and Rocky Anderson of Salt Lake City, as we ask how prepared is your city?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(on camera): Good evening. I'm Wolf Blitzer reporting tonight from Washington. Welcome to our special report.

In the new U.S. war against terrorism, the nation's mayors have, in effect, become our first line of defense. Witness the extraordinary example set by New York's now former mayor, Rudy Giuliani. Tonight, 300 mayors are here in Washington for their annual winter meeting. Topic number one for them: homeland defense.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER (voice-over): September 11 changed everything. In the space of only a few hours, Americans' sense of security and invincibility was shattered, replaced by thoughts of fear and vulnerability.

Everyone, in cities big and small, was suddenly faced with the same question: How prepared is our city? How safe is our water supply, our power plants, the food we eat, our monuments, our bridges and buildings? The attacks on New York and Washington forced local officials around the country to reevaluate their emergency response, communications and transportation systems. Experts say most cities are better prepared now.

TOM RIDGE, HOMELAND SECURITY DIRECTOR: I think every single day since September 11, we have made ourself safer, stronger and more secure. We still have a lot of work left to do, Wolf, but we are making progress every day.

BLITZER: Still, no city is fully prepared to handle a potentially devastating event, such as a biological or chemical weapons attack.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(on camera): Later this week, the mayors will travel from Washington, D.C. to New York City to view the destruction at ground zero and lend their support to that city's new mayor, Michael Bloomberg.

How does a city prepare for a possibly catastrophic terror attack while grappling with everyday concerns such as crime, traffic and municipal services? And who will foot the bill? Jeanne Meserve paid a visit to Baltimore, Maryland.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A century and a half ago, these cannons protected Baltimore. Now there is a new battle against terrorism and new defenses are being established.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is our main operations center.

MESERVE: Another relic, a civil defense center circa 1952, has been updated to serve as a command center in any terrorist attack.

RICHARD MCCOY, BALTIMORE EMERGENCY DIRECTOR: We brought in fiberoptics. Now we are able to monitor our downtown area and some streets and highways.

MESERVE: The city has also set up a biosurveillance system which compiles data on everything from animal carcasses to school attendance to emergency room admissions.

GERALD HUFFMAN, CITY HEALTH WORKER: We monitor things like cardiac arrest, chest pain, respiratory distress, stroke, seizures, that sort of thing that could indicate any kind of a chemical or biological incident.

MESERVE: In a recent cnn.com survey, a panel of independent experts rated Baltimore well prepared for a terrorist event. But so much is left to do, the city's director of emergency management won't even hazard a guess on a price tag.

MCCOY: I personally don't talk about money. I talk about need. I talk about problems. I don't talk about money.

MESERVE: The mayor, however, does talk money. Martin O'Malley talks about it a lot. MAYOR MARTIN O'MALLEY, BALTIMORE, MARYLAND: You cannot support a robust homeland defense on property tax and bake sales.

MESERVE: Baltimore is a sprawling port with rail lines and chemical plants and a web of bridges and tunnels. The price tag for beefing up protection since September 11, $6 million, the biggest line item: police overtime.

The city has scrambled to pay for it, freezing hiring and postponing capital expenses while coping with the double whammy of reduced tourist revenue. Meanwhile, it's had to meet basic need.

O'MALLEY: You know, we can't afford to take officers off the dangerous corners that are out there anyway, where the chemicals of heroin and cocaine have been killing people in my city for a number of years. So we need that ability to do the prudent things in times of threat without bankrupting the city in the meantime.

MESERVE: The long term solution in the view of O'Malley and many mayors, block grants from the federal government to help defray the cost of homeland security.

O'MALLEY: As I read the Constitution of the United States to provide for common defense is a pretty basic responsibility of the national government.

MESERVE: But without federal assistance this city, like many others, has met the new security demands as best it can because the potential cost of not protecting its citizens is simply beyond mathematical calculation.

Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Baltimore, Maryland.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: CNN has asked law enforcement, security, and emergency management experts to look at the preparedness of the nation's 30 largest cities. You can see the results in a wide-ranging, interactive, special report, at cnn.com/wolf.

But joining me now from Atlanta is Mike Fish of cnn.com. He put the entire project together. Mike, thanks very much for joining us. First of all, your survey listed New York City as the safest city in the United States. Why?

MIKE FISH, CNN.COM: Well, it's the most prepared city in the country. They've done a great deal of planning and preparation in advance of this. They were leery of the possible implications of terrorist activity. There's been a great deal of funding this city has gotten and they've done a great deal of planning.

And it's ironic or important to note that even prior to 9/11, the city had planned for a bioterrorism exercise on September 12, which again shows the work they had done and the preparation they had done.

BLITZER: Among the cities you listed, your experts listed, as least prepared, among the 30 top cities were New Orleans, Las Vegas, Milwaukee, Boston. New Orleans obviously of high interest because it's host of the Super Bowl coming up, the Mardi Gras coming up. What makes them less prepared?

FISH: I think one issue -- it also pertains in New York, but New York did so well in other categories that it wasn't a problem -- is traffic and congestion. And that's an issue because if you have an attack upon a city, you need to get people out of that city and be able to move them through the process. And also, at the same time, be able to get the medical assistance in to help the folks. And there are certain cities, particularly Boston, where they really struggle with that issue.

Another important thing to think about is the medical and health issue. One of the things in a bioterrorist attack is being able to detect the attack. In both Las Vegas, New Orleans, two cities that are host to major events, they are convention cities, they are in states that don't have a public health veterinarian and neither of those cities have a CDC-sponsored disease detective. And, again, that's crucial and important in the early detection of a problem.

BLITZER: We are looking now at some factors in your survey. Talk about the factors that go into this ranking of the 30 largest cities.

FISH: There are four key issues we looked at. One of them was traffic and congestion. And within that category, we had four or five issues that we dealt with and evaluated the cities. And again, that pertains to a city like Boston and some other large cities, L.A., Seattle is another place that has problems with traffic and congestion. That's crucial.

Another thing you have -- obviously the big dig is a factor and that's something that's going on now and in turn, and hope, I guess, will alleviate traffic down the road, although that's still several years away from completion.

Another thing we did is we surveyed the emergency management directors. There's a 10-question survey, and within that survey, there were key questions. One I'd like to point out is was the issue of who does the emergency management director report to? Is it the fire department, the police chief or is it the mayor's office? And in talking to experts, it's key and pivotal that it be the mayor's office because that, in turn, alleviates some of that bureaucracy and the levels you have to go through to get assistance. And that's of the issues that's favoring a place like New York, for instance. Another...

BLITZER: Mike -- Go ahead, Mike, finish it up.

FISH: Another one would be -- we talked about this a little bit is hospital and medical. That's an issue where we rated, I think there was like 16 different categories. It looks at the number of beds available, the occupancy rates of hospitals, how they're doing.

Another thing would be grants, federal grants. Do cities receive grants and the level they receive them at. One thing we look at is a grant that's been given out for special communications systems. I think there's about 10 cities that have gotten that, and that's something which favor those cities, obviously.

BLITZER: OK. Mike Fish of cnn.com, that's for that update. Appreciate it very much.

FISH: Thank you.

BLITZER: And what lessons have we learned already about homefront security? What's the next threat? Can our cities meet the challenge?

Joining me here in Washington, where they've gathered for the annual winter meeting of some 30 (sic) counterparts, the Washington, D.C. mayor, Anthony Williams; the San Francisco mayor, Willie Brown; and from Salt Lake City, Utah, getting ready for next month's Winter Olympics, Mayor Rocky Anderson.

I want to be beginning with you, Mayor Anderson. Thanks to all of you for joining us. How ready are you, Mayor Anderson, in terms of security for the Winter Olympics? We've heard Tom Ridge. We heard John Ashcroft say the extraordinary security precautions are unprecedented.

MAYOR ROCKY ANDERSON, SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH: Well, I think that was true even before the events of September 11. There was massive security planning and intelligence gathering even before September 11. And then, with the help of our federal partners, through a collaboration of state, local and federal law enforcement, we have ramped up dramatically since September 11.

We have taken extreme measures to secure our airways. During the opening/closing ceremonies and even during the entire time of the Olympics, general aviation aircraft will have to go through gateway airports to be cleared into the Salt Lake City area. We have thousands of National Guard and reservists that will be helping out with security that would not have happened before September 11. We've also gotten some help through the CDC with epidemiologists that will be on the ground here, huge storages of drugs, vaccines, that kind of thing. And then also help with some infrastructure, some more fences, magnetometers, that sort of thing.

But we are trying to reach the balance of absolutely minimizing the risks to safety and security of people here in Salt Lake City and at the same time, providing for an open atmosphere and the conditions for a really great party. And I think we've reached that balance very well.

BLITZER: All right. Mayor Anderson, stand by. I want to bring in Mayor Brown of San Francisco. Mayor Brown, you've got some high visibility potential targets. Remember in November, the bridges in San Francisco supposedly were being targeted, some reported threats to that. How do you protect a bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay Bridge? MAYOR WILLIE BROWN, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA: Well, first and foremost, you should know that San Francisco and that region didn't start with September 11. We've gone through these kind of traumas in one sense or another by virtue of being a quake-exposed city. And we've gone through the bridges, in some cases, being damaged as a result of a quake and the business of trying to put together what an approach that would in fact ensure the citizens safety and, at the same time, their comfort.

And so we do it by operating on a cooperative basis with the state system. We operate with the highway patrol. We operate with the Coast Guard. We operate with all of the other supportive agencies that deal with the issues in that area. And as a result of that, we are fairly comfortable that we've done the job, we will do the job, and we will do it whether September 11 would have been a case or not.

BLITZER: And just button up for that threat to the bridges that we all were very familiar with. You were in Beijing at the time. Was there a real threat ever?

BROWN: Well, apparently, there was a report of a threat. Whether or not that report had great credibility or not is still open to question because it came from a source that no one could verify, but it was delivered by a source who had been reliable. And it was delivered through a series of means that could not be readily checked. And the governor did what I suppose any good executive would have done, and that's exercise great care on the side of caution in terms of the safety and protection for the city and for the citizens.

However, that process -- we are attempting to deal with now with the federals by having one single source of information rather than multiple sources of information. And then finally, of course, having that information not only supplied, but recommendations as to how we should react to that information and the establishment of a chain from the governor to the mayors of the various cities. And I think we've learned a lesson from that incident and I believe that, henceforth, you will not have the kind of panic that almost happened as a result of that information.

BLITZER: And confusion. Let's bring in Mayor Williams. Your city, Washington, D.C., was targeted, as we all know. And I assume there have been some major changes since September 11. But let me read to you an e-mail question one of our viewers sent us and get your sense.

Jim from Cincinnati wants to know this: Since it is not possible to eliminate the risk of a terrorist attack, how have the federal, state and local law enforcement and response agencies worked out exactly what is the role and responsibility of each group involved?

Have you worked that out with the federal authorities in D.C.?

MAYOR ANTHONY WILLIAMS, WASHINGTON, D.C.: Well, we've worked it out on two levels and two levels are necessary. I think we've worked it out on a senior level where there is, post-September 11, much better level of communication between senior officials and the district government and the federal government.

But just as importantly, and probably more importantly, on an operational basis on the frontline. You're talking about local response being the first line out there with police who are on the line, Secret Service people, FBI people, park police people, a command center staffed by all of those folks sharing information and intelligence on a real-time basis. And I think that makes a world of difference.

BLITZER: All right, Mayor Anderson, you were speaking a little bit about the security precautions getting ready for the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. We have a viewer, Michelle from Utah, wants to know this: What security preparations were in place for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake prior to September 11? Can you assure us that the terrorists have not already been strategically placed just waiting for the Games to begin?

ANDERSON: Well, first of all, we undertook a massive security planning effort, and it was an unprecedented collaboration between federal, state and local law enforcement agencies with the majority of the planning through an Olympic public safety command that was set up by our legislature. That worked very, very well. We had great intelligence gathering capabilities on all levels. And so, we had an extraordinary security plan in place even before September 11.

Since September 11, we've added all those elements that I talked about earlier and in addition, the Salt Lake City International Airport will be the first airport -- already is the first airport in the country -- where we are screening 100 percent of all luggage loaded on to airplanes. That's something I feel strongly that we do throughout the country.

BLITZER: So you've taken additional steps obviously since September 11. Let's take another e-mail question for Mayor Brown. This from James in Richmond, Virginia: I'm beginning to notice the sense of relaxation, a feeling that our everyday life is getting back to normal? Can you assure me that my security is still one of the government's priorities?

In your particular case, the municipal government of San Francisco.

BROWN: I think not only do I speak for San Francisco, but I think I speak for Washington, D.C. and every other mayor in this country. We are taking extraordinary steps to make sure that every citizen under our jurisdiction is, in fact, as safe as they possibly can be.

But let me tell this gentleman from Virginia, we've got to be careful that we don't allow the threat of terrorists to disrupt our lives so much that we become beholden only to the question of public safety, and we no longer can enjoy our lives. The terrorists have won the day we cease to still be Americans, exercising the freedoms that we've always enjoyed...

BLITZER: Right. BROWN: ... while at the same time be secure and comfortable.

Every mayor in this country is pursuing that effort so that, in fact, we do not permit the terrorists to win by turning us into feared persons and persons operated on the basis of fear.

BLITZER: And all three of the cities represented on this program tonight, of course, depend on tourism, very critical or all three cities.

BROWN: Absolutely.

BLITZER: We are going to pick this conversation up when we come back. We will also move into another sensitive area, how prepared are our cities and my guests for what we call the worst-case scenario, a biological or chemical attack? Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back to our special report, "How Prepared is Your City?" Can any city be ready for a terrorist attack featuring chemical, biological or radiation weapons? We are going to continue our conversation with our three mayors.

And Mayor Williams of Washington, D.C., let's get to this question, because I think it's appropriate for you. Andrea from Boston e-mails us this: If there was a major disaster with hundreds or thousands of injured survivors, could the health care system of any major U.S. city provide the necessary emergency care?

Do you have that ability in the nation's Capitol?

WILLIAMS: Well, as you know, we had an incident with anthrax here in our city, and provided Cipro to over 17,000 citizens.

BLITZER: The antibiotic.

WILLIAMS: The antibiotic, Cipro to essentially -- as a treatment for any exposure that happened at that time. One of the things that really helped us was the coordination with the federal government. That is absolutely key, the other key is coordination between government and the private hospitals, and what we heard about in Baltimore. We are doing here and that is, moving from diagnosis -- moving from notification of diagnosis to notification of symptoms; are people coughing? Are the complaining of this or complaining of that? Once those symptoms are reported they're co- related, you know you've got a problem you can swing into action.

Then it becomes an issue of getting the resources there so it's really a matter of coordination, a matter of management, a matter of resources. We are making progress here, but I would agree with the other mayors, this is again, whether you're talking about transportation issues, health issues, you're talking about the generic public safety issues, these are national issues and they require a national response. BLITZER: Mayor Anderson, I don't want you to reveal any secrets, obviously it's a very sensitive area. But have you taken special precautions, God forbid to deal with a chemical or a biological attack during the Winter Olympics.

ANDERSON: Yes, of course and again we rely in very large part upon our federal partners. We are the first responders and we have great emergency medical personnel, a good emergency management system in place, but we also need the Federal Emergency Management Administration, the CDC, all the federal players, to take a role in this. And we have made very complex arrangements but with a good chain of command in place, with every agency and there are several involved as you might imagine, in all of this. But that's been a major concern of ours, and I think that we are absolutely as prepared as we can possibly be.

BLITZER: Let me bring back Mayor Brown of San Francisco. What did you learn from Mayor Rudy Giuliani in the way he handled the disaster in New York after September 11 that might, God forbid, work for you in a terrorist attack?

BROWN: I don't think any other mayor in the country would have handled the matter any differently than Mayor Giuliani did. First, he made sure that to the extent that all the services and resources available to the city were in fact made available to assist in whatever way. He instantly hooked up with the state, Governor Pataki and the people doing stuff there, through their emergency operations, and of course he had the federal government right at his side. He coordinated the whole thing on behalf of the citizens of his city. Every other mayor in the country would have done the same thing.

And then he followed very quickly with reassurances to the individual citizens through the news media organizations, through television, and the newspaper, made himself extremely visible so that people got a level of confidence by virtue of the level of comfort, he was showing under the circumstances, while at the same time showing great compassion for those who had been personally victimized by virtue of it, and that was the core and the key to the success of Rudy Giuliani on this case. And I think almost every mayor in the country would have handled it the same way.

BLITZER: And they'll be writing textbooks and histories about this in the weeks, months and years ahead.

BROWN: No question.

BLITZER: Mayor Brown, Mayor Williams, Mayor Anderson in Salt Lake City, good luck to you. We will all be watching those Winter Olympics, we know you got your arms full, your hands full and we wish you only success in dealing with that.

ANDERSON: Thank you very much.

BLITZER: I speak for our two mayor's here, and all your colleagues, they wish you were here in Washington.

BROWN: And be sure to send my buses when it's over.

(LAUGHTER)

BLITZER: Helping you very much, thanks so much and coming up, the long arm of the law pulls the American Taliban fighter a little bit closer. We'll be back in just a moment with a quick check of this hour's late developments. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back. Here are this hour's latest developments.

John Walker has been transferred from the U.S. Navy ship where he has been held. A plane landed at the Kandahar Airport in Afghanistan under tight security, it may have had walker on board. Walker should be back in the United States within a matter of days to face criminal charges.

The Red Cross made its first public comment today about the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo. It says it was given full access to the Afghan detainees, as it investigated their conditions. The Red Cross did not comment on what it found, but said it had a different impression than groups who have criticized the conditions without visiting the camp.

And that's all the time we have tonight. Please join me again tomorrow, twice at both 5:00 and 7:00 p.m. Eastern. Until then, thanks very much for watching. I am Wolf Blitzer in Washington.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com