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Davis says bridges threatened Dow Jones News Service		Thursday, November 1, 2001 Breaking News Sections

SACRAMENTO (Dow Jones) -- California Governor Gray Davis confirmed "there's a credible threat" that terrorists might try to destroy one or more of the state's suspension bridges.

Davis said the state has "taken elaborate precautions" to prevent an attack, said to be planned for between Nov. 2 and Nov. 7.

Potential targets are said to include San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge, Vincent Thomas Bridge in Los Angeles and Coronado Bridge in San Diego.

California Highway Patrol Commissioner Dwight "Spike" Helmick said "the bridges are safe."

Davis says he's also directed Major Gen. Paul Monroe, adjutant general of the California National Guard, to assign additional military personnel to the bridges "in whatever numbers he feels appropriate."

And he said it was important to make a public statement about the threat. "The best preparation," he said, "is to let the terrorists know, 'We know what you're up to. We're ready. It's not going to succeed.' "

The governor said that the state had already been on heightened alert at the bridges starting about two weeks ago, when CHP officers found some suitcases near the Golden Gate Bridge, which connects San Francisco and Marin counties in Northern California. The suitcases "turned out to be not anything particularly worrisome," the governor said. "But the fact that the suitcases could be there was worrisome."

After the discovery of the suitcases, the governor said, law enforcement officials received information "from several different sources" that between Nov. 2 and Nov. 7, "there would be an effort to blow up one of those bridges."

The governor said the state has "taken every step as humanely possible to tighten security." He said he wanted Californians to know that "if they feel they're going to cross the bridges, we've done everything possible to ensure their safety."