Newport-Mesa not well prepared for attack

Deepa Bharath

NEWPORT-MESA -- Public safety officials say they are limited in how

prepared they can be in the event of biological or nuclear warfare.

Newport-Mesa police and fire departments do have teams to deal with

day-to-day hazardous materials incidents such as sewage spills or illegal

dumping into the ocean, but officials say they are not specialized enough

to deal with large-scale biological warfare, a threat the World Health

Organization says all Americans face after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks

on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

“I don’t think we’re prepared for it,” said Newport Beach Sgt. Steve

Shulman. “We don’t have the significant training, equipment or the tools

to handle that kind of a situation.”

Police officers and firefighters in local departments have a limited

number of gas masks they use in case of riots where tear gas or pepper

spray is used, but the masks are not geared to handle the kind of

chemicals that come with war, officials said.

Shulman said he has received several calls from the community asking

about how they can buy gas masks and if the masks will protect them.

“I don’t know that,” Shulman said. “But I do know that masks come with

different kinds of filters that filter out different types of chemicals.

So how are we going to know what types of chemicals are going to be used

in the attacks, if there is one?”

It seems unlikely that cities such as Costa Mesa and Newport Beach

will be attacked, said Teri Durnall, Costa Mesa’s Fire Prevention and

Education Officer who also teaches the city’s Community Emergency

Response Team training program.

“The terrorists will probably target a big city like Los Angeles,” she

said.

But, she added, the fire department is always alert and ready to face

any sort of disasters. Durnall said the city even has a plan in case of a

disaster at the San Onofre nuclear plant.

“Even if something happens to that plant, the most impact we’ll have

is some dust in the air,” she said.

The dust would be cleared out by using some filtering equipment that

will be borrowed from the county, Durnall said.

Most local agencies, however, do have partnerships and mutual-aid

agreements with bigger cities and the county in case of major

emergencies, said Newport Beach Fire Capt. John Blauer.

It is also possible, he said, that police officers and firefighters

might start learning new techniques to counter these new problems.

“There is always information and lessons learned with each incident

[like the terrorist attacks],” Blauer said. “They educate us.”