First responder funds trickle toward Dyersburg

Tommy Gibbons, emergency management director for Dyersburg, has gotten used to starting conversations with a statement like, "Do you want to hear the good news first, or the bad news?"

There is some of both these days for the city.

On one hand Gibbons is proud to point out that Dyersburg is light years ahead of most cities and towns in Tennessee when it comes to being prepared for a major disaster, such as a terrorist attack. On the other hand, only a fraction of the equipment necessary to handle such a catastrophe is currently on hand. Caught between a population in rebellion against tax increases and a sour national and regional economy, city leaders simply have been unable to find the funds for major investments in personnel training or new emergency equipment.

Tennessee mayors and emergency response personnel who pinned their hopes on federal help were disappointed this month when Congress recessed prior to the Thanksgiving holidays without approving a penny to prepare first responders for a terrorist event. While Congressional leaders reached agreement with the Bush administration on the creation of a Department of Homeland Security, conspicuously absent from the action was a $3.5 billion funding initiative for training and equipping local fire, police and emergency service workers.

Still, Gibbons said there are some necessary federal grants trickling into the city and county. He has received approval to make equipment purchases totaling $40,000 for first responders and has been assembling a wish list that includes self-contained breathing devices, hazardous-materials suits, portable generators and lighting equipment, rescue equipment used to free survivors from collapsed structures, and specialized communication devices that help firemen encased in bulky protective gear communicate with one another and their field directors.

That is the good news.

"A breathing apparatus alone costs $2,500," Gibbons said. "This grant just lets us get some of the basic equipment we need."

The $40,000 grant was part of a pre-Sept. 11, domestic-preparedness grant included in the Justice Department's 2000 budget. This program actually began in 1999 when funds were made available to Tennessee's 10 largest counties by population to make dollars available for upgrading first-responder equipment.

Eddie Boatwright, director of preparedness and homeland security for the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency, said Tuesday that a second grant totaling $75,000 would soon be made available to Dyersburg and Dyer County through the State Domestic Preparedness Equipment Program, which was funded in 2001. It will help the city and county to further improve its inventory of emergency equipment.

Again, good news for the city and county.

On the downside, however, Boatwright said Dyersburg stands out as an exception rather than the rule in Tennessee. It has a professional, well-organized and well-funded infrastructure for emergency services compared to most cities across the state. He estimated that all of the monies provided to Tennessee towns and cities from fiscal 2000 to the present would only meet between 15 and 18 percent of the equipment needs for local jurisdictions. While the $3.5 billion in first-responder dollars would have changed that number considerably, Boatwright said that he has serious reservations about the wisdom of spending large amounts of federal dollars on emergency services operations across the state that rely mostly upon volunteers and lack basic equipment and supplies.

After all, what would a rural volunteer fire department need with a Class A Haz-Mat suit, he wondered, when there aren't enough basic firefighter coats to go around?

"We need to be careful to spend this money appropriately so we get the maximum effect for our first responders," said Boatwright.

Gibbons could not agree more. In assembling the list for the first federal grant, he has tried to purchase as much equipment as possible that would have multiple uses -- not just for a terrorist attack but also for disaster scenarios such as a chemical spill on the interstate, an earthquake or a tornado.

"We are going to try and upgrade all of our emergency response equipment," Gibbons said. "We know we are not a high-profile (terrorist) target, but we have accidents on the highways or weather-related disasters. We are going to purchase as much equipment as we can for day-to-day use."

Gibbons offered a view of Homeland Security and anti-terrorism from a purely local perspective. Should such a terrible event occur, he said, local police, fire and emergency personnel would be first on the scene, attempting to deal with the problem and its aftermath. Homeland Security offices in distant places like Nashville and Washington could provide assistance to local workers, but they would be unable to effectively micro-manage from a distance. That is why Gibbons hoped Governor-elect Bredesen would select a proven leader from the ranks of the state's first responders -- such as a law enforcement officer -- to head Tennessee's Office of Homeland Security.

Mark Grant, who is in charge of communications for the city, expressed similar concerns. His personal position on Homeland Security is similar in many respects to one held by the National League of Cities. Since the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995, NLC has called for a federal office to coordinate resources and serve as a clearinghouse for information sharing, research and technical support. Grant said he felt that better organization at the federal and state levels would enable local governments to improve their own early-detection, warning and response capabilities.

"There has to be an absolute requirement for information sharing from the local to the federal level," Grant said. "We need to keep in mind that we are all on the same team."

Grant said he was also concerned about the Congress' failure to come up with the requested $3.5 billion in first-responder dollars.

"We (Dyersburg) are not going to be impacted as badly as many other communities in the state, because we have taken a proactive approach and, in recent years, have made a number of technological advances," Grant said. "While we have advanced systems in place, we need additional funding for training personnel or to upgrade to newer technology as it becomes available. My biggest concern at this point is our ability to obtain grants for additional infrastructure such as improved security for water systems or public buildings."

The House of Representatives and Senate are likely to take up the issue of funds for first responders early in the next session, perhaps as soon as late January. The decision as to how much money will ultimately be allocated for first responders remains in question, however. The federal government is deeply in the red at this point, a situation that has many economists warning the Bush administration it needs to tighten the reigns on federal spending.