Posted on 03/05/2002 3:52:24 PM PST by ATOMIC_PUNK
"It's very costly to local governments, both in tax dollars and emotions in your personnel," said Broward County, Fla., Sheriff Ken Jenne, whose department has spent $2 million since Sept. 11 to ratchet up protection and manpower every time an alert is issued.
The system, as it stands now, would use five colors to rate alerts from the lowest to highest levels:
Green Normal. This will be the lowest level, and is a new category. The description was still being worked on.
White Guarded. This will signify a continuing general threat of terrorist activity.
Yellow Serious. Yellow indicates an increased and predictable threat of terrorist activity.
Orange Critical. This will warn that a terrorist threat may be likely.
Red Severe. Terrorist activity on a specific target may be imminent under this warning.
The announcement is expected to be made by both Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge and Attorney General John Ashcroft, with participation from local law enforcement officials.
Former Philadelphia Police Commissioner John Timoney, who used a similar system to protect the Republican presidential convention in his city two years ago, said at least it helps narrow down the range of the threat for people who may have to respond.
"By giving different color codes, at least it gives them a certain stage on which to work and allocate and relocate resources and personnel," he said.
Officials said they were hoping to present the new system soon, but were still undecided on what level the nation would be rated at right now: orange for critical or yellow for serious.
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We have our sirens in Memphis back up, a relic of the days when the Defense Depot/Logistics Center and Millington Naval Air station made this transportation hub a probable secondary target. If you need assistance getting those in your area working, I'd be glad to point you toward info on what it took here.
As for wearing your gun on your hip, you have immediate access to it in anything beyond Condition White. At Yellow, my spares are made available, and the primary equipment gets readied.
I don't think you'd care to know what all gets employed at latestage Orange or early Red. But it's very noisy, indeed, and spectacular. Yes, it's come to that a couple of times.
But you'd best expect to be a target in any event, and be prepared to do something decisive about it, often with little or no warning.
-archy-/-
LEVEL - NORMAL |
LEVEL - GUARDED |
LEVEL - SERIOUS |
LEVEL - CRITICAL |
LEVEL - SEVERE |
There some organization consultant who will color code your files they same way, but I don't think she will spend millions of $$$ like Ridge.
i've been saying this for three years to people; they have no idea what i'm talking about. thank you.
maybe i'm crazy, but at least i'm in good company.
If they ever get serious about coming up with some kind of useful system, they might try tieing the color to the type of threat they most expect: such as a bombing, chemical, biological, or nuclear attack, and to the amount of credibility they give their evidence.
OTOH, it could be that they are only instituting this "system" as a "feel good" PR measure. Do they want the terrorists to know what they know? I doubt it.
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