(The Washington Post published the following article by Lyndsey Layton on its website on May 23.)
WASHINGTON — Metro Chief Executive Richard A. White said yesterday he is alarmed by a lack of coordination among the many agencies that control the region’s road and transit systems and fears that this weakness will trap people in the event of another terrorist attack.
“I wake up in a cold sweat regularly, wondering how bad is it going to be and how long is it going to take to get people out,” said White, who has been calling for better teamwork among transportation providers since Sept. 11, 2001.
Although much time and money has been spent to improve emergency response since the attack on the Pentagon, White said, not enough attention has been paid to the challenge of moving people in and around the capital during a crisis.
The problem, he said, is that control of the road network is splintered among two states, one city and the federal government while transit is divided among Metro, several private bus companies and two commuter railroads.
“Who’s in charge? Nobody’s in charge,” White said after a meeting of Metro directors about safety and security. “This region is so complex, nobody’s in charge at the regional level.”
White said that on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 meaning well-prepared for a terrorist attack, he rated Washington’s transportation network at 6. “By this year’s anniversary of 9/11, we need to be much farther along,” he said.
Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, which oversees the District and federal operations, thinks that’s a fair assessment, according to spokesman David Marin. “Do we have a long way to go? The answer is yes,” Marin said.
A drill last month of the region’s transportation agencies exposed several gaps in coordination, said Carol Kachadoorian, executive assistant to Metro’s chief operating officer for rail.
“There are just a lot of things that still need to be thought through,” she said. “What’s the strategy for evacuating? Do you put people on trains and buses, or does that make them moving targets? If an incident happens, you have a short window of time to make decisions that keep people flowing in the District. If you don’t make the calls, you have gridlock.”
The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, a regional planning organization, built a $500,000 communication system that can send immediate alerts to, and set up a conference call among, police officials, local governments, federal departments, schools and transportation agencies.
In March, however, when a North Carolina man drove his tractor into a pool near the Lincoln Memorial and threatened to set off explosives, the U.S. Park Police closed Constitution Avenue for 47 hours and never used the new COG communication system to inform transportation officials.
“Some federal agencies have very high levels of security, and they don’t want to tell you what they’re going to do until they do it,” said David Snyder, chairman of COG’s emergency transportation work group. “We have to get past that.”
Local governments are in the middle of a politically sensitive negotiation over how to split up $42 million in newly released federal homeland security funds for the capital area.
More money would help, Snyder said. He wants to create an interactive database programmed with every possible terrorism scenario and an appropriate, coordinated response. In a crisis, a few strokes of a keypad would churn out an appropriate response plan for all state, local and federal agencies in the region, Snyder said. He estimated the price tag at $5 million.
Natalie Jones, emergency preparedness coordinator for the District’s Transportation Department, said: “Transportation in this region is difficult on any given day. You throw emergency on top of that, and it makes it even more difficult. At least people are talking now, and I don’t even know if that happened in the past.
“This isn’t going away. As the codes keep changing every day, from orange to yellow and yellow to orange, it reminds us this is not going away and we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Michael F. Byrne, the Department of Homeland Security’s coordinator for the national capital region, said that although he viewed his role as collaborative, White’s call for someone “in charge” appeared to fit his office.
“His point is a fair criticism,” Byrne said, adding that he would speak to the Metro chief about his concerns. “But there’s not nobody driving the ship. I’m here to add that coordination.”
Byrne said it is true that evacuation plans have some distance to go but said they are far better than they were 18 months ago. The District received federal funds in 2002 to develop a plan that encompasses the entire region, and Byrne said White has been a leader in the process. The evacuation plan is to be completed in September.
Byrne noted that Metro’s lobbying after Sept. 11 to obtain a dedicated source of federal homeland security funds evolved into the regional effort to secure a coordinator in the
department.
“Dick was involved in the creation of this office,” Byrne said. “I hope I’m living up to his expectations.”