[Peregrino]

Food for Thought.

Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2008 7:55 AM
To: DailyBrief; Emergency Management; HazMat
Subject: [EM] "Creeping Complacency"

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reminded last week that July marks the 5th annual National Preparedness Month. This comes amidst new warnings about very real intelligence that Al Qaeda and allied jihadists are re-doubling their efforts to attack the US, and indications that the Middle East is a powder keg that could blow at any time. Either of these events would result in unprecedented hardships for Americans.

Yet, a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll disturbingly shows American's fears of a terrorist attack occurring anytime soon has reached its lowest point since 9/11.

But, as HSToday.us has reported, complacency has become a national crisis according to worried authorities, and at a time in history when the most unimaginable of crises not only are possible, but highly likely
- be they natural or manmade.

Disaster readiness authorities are alarmed by this growing complacency, especially readiness for catastrophic medical crises brought on by hurricanes like Katrina, earthquakes, a pandemic or some other serious pathogenic outbreak or a radiological or biological terrorist attack.

A Harris poll conducted in June 2007 found only 14 percent of respondents said they are "very prepared" for an emergency involving power and water outages, medical help, and fuel shortages, and only 44 percent are somewhat prepared for a homeland disaster - of any kind.

"While majorities of Americans say they are prepared, this does not seem to be the case," the Harris Poll said, adding, "when asked if they had done certain action items, majorities say they have not."

Sixty-one percent, for instance, had not "made a specific plan for how you and your family would leave your home if you had to evacuate in case of an emergency situation," and 68 percent had not "put together a disaster supplies kit with water, food, medicine, and other supplies."

This "creeping complacency," as security authorities call it, has been spreading with alarming speed and virulency across the nation.
Authorities like former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke and former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson have been warning about it for years.

It remains a cause for consternation on the part of top officials, including DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, who said recently that the problem is among the most vexing during his tenure at DHS. Federal Emergency Management Agency Director David Paulison, who has repeatedly expressed frustration over the level of civilian preparedness, also recently said the problem of preparedness readiness has become a "pet peeve" of his.

It's no wonder DHS officials are concerned about complacency. Its preparedness campaign launched in 2003 in partnership with the non-profit public service Advertising Council to educate and empower Americans to prepare for and respond to emergencies, has involved more than $700 million in donated media support and has been touted as one of the most successful campaigns in the Ad Council's more than 65-year history.

Maybe so, but complacency remains a growing problem. Almost as soon as we were attacked on 9/11, complacency began to spread.

As the ruble of the downed World Trade Center Towers continued to smolder, former Marine Colonel William Parish (who was commanding officer of the Marine Corps Security Force Battalion in 1996 when terrorists drove a truck filled with explosives into the Khobar Towers complex in Saudi Arabia) warned only a month after 9/11 that "after a terrorist attack, complacency can set in very quickly. People go into denial - we all want to think that an attack is a one-of-a-kind event.
But the truth is that there are probably terrorists cells, 'sleepers,'
at work right now, planning for an attack scheduled to take place years down the road, figuring out how to fund it, how to implement it."

Indeed. Yet, despite all the warnings about the uncompromising religious motivation of Islamist jihadists - and even homegrown terrorists - to take their time in planning the next spectacular attack, the citizenry apparently is choosing to ignore it, whether out of misunderstanding the warnings because they don't understand what's actually behind all the concern, or whether because of some psychologically rooted wiring that accounts for waning lack of trepidation.

But that doesn't make the complacency any less problematic or disturbing.

The problem of preparedness complacency was highlighted again recently at the Pacific Health Summit meeting in Seattle by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Julie Gerberding, who warned attendees that "public health enemy No. 1 is the challenge of complacency and our inability to maintain a focus on threats when they are around the corner or potentially in our backyard."

"People have very short attention spans and when something is in the news for a while, it becomes old news and then it's no news," she said, stressing that "we have to be very strategic to make sure that the leaders and governments fill in for the tendency toward complacency."

Meanwhile, Americans' fear of terrorism is at record low. The new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll shows a scant 35 percent of Americans believes a terrorist attack is going to occur on American soil anytime soon.

This time last summer, 41 percent of those who responded to the same poll said they believed a terrorist attack on the homeland was forthcoming.

Apparently, with each passing year America isn't attacked, fewer and fewer Americans believe it will be assailed. Concurrently, more and more also don't see the need to prepare for any type of crisis - even residents of areas that are vulnerable to catastrophic disasters, like those living in the Gulf Coast states or in or near floodplains and lands susceptible to wildfires.

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