Public RMs Boost Security After Attacks

The district, which consists of 15,000 employees over more than 200 locations (including schools and warehouses), and 118,000 children, recently held a mandatory anthrax and mail opening awareness training for all employees, he said. Also in the works is an information summit for principals.

"The biggest thing in an organization is communication and making sure everyone has facts to deal with, and not just rumors," he explained.

While funding is "not unlimited," Mr. Britt said he has been able to obtain funding "that probably wouldnt have been available prior to Sept. 11."

The community has responded wholeheartedly, he said. "The Sept. 11 issues have been a catalyst for us to make some proactive changes and rethink the way weve been doing things historically," he said.

The district already had video surveillance at 65 secondary schools, and has added security measures that include extra guards and stepped-up after-hours patrols. It also has added new safety measures including a video buzzer system that recognizes photo IDs for parents, teachers or students entering a school after 8 a.m. Those wishing to obtain a visitors pass must sign in and leave a drivers license as collateral, Mr. Britt explained.

He said his objective is to secure the schools without "making the children feel like theyre in a prison." The goal is to create a sense of openness. "I use the analogy that we want to make them feel more like theyre at the airport, so that its more of a friendly environment than a hostile environment," he said.

Although the precautions might sound like "pure security," Mr. Britt said he views them as "a protection of assets," which is "a traditional risk management philosophy."

He explained that the challenge for risk managers, "who always want to do a cost-benefit analysis," is equating dollars to lives. To do this, he said, he does a more subjective cost-benefit analysis with less emphasis on dollars. Mr. Britt said he looks at a worst-case scenario–what could happen, and how citizens would view the actions of elected and appointed officials "if we didnt do something."

The stakes, he added, "are a lot higher than replacing a burned-out building."

The school district is self-insured. "We dont have a captive, but were moving in that direction," he added. "I have a request for qualifications out on the street for broker selection."

Sonny Blackwell, a public sector risk control manager for St. Paul, works out of Meridian, Miss., with a field staff of 15 to help risk managers of small municipalities. "I will tell you that my phone has not been ringing off the wall with people concerned about this issue," Mr. Blackwell said. "So that says one of two things–that theyre not concerned about it, or that theyre pretty comfortable with what theyve got in place. I think its a little of both. What Im seeing depends on the risk," he said.

Larger risks and those located near seaports and large metropolitan areas "are taking a proactive approach," by going through drills and updating their contingency plans, he said. Most small entities are paying more attention to their mail, but "its really business as usual," he observed.

Small entities, which Mr. Blackwell said St. Paul typically insures, rely heavily on state emergency management organizations, he noted. "Theyre trained to handle events up to their limits, and when they get close to those limits theyre trained to call the state," he said.

Over the last few years, he said, fire academies have been actively training local agencies in terrorism response.

Mark Carufel, risk manager for Sterling Heights, Mich., a suburb of Detroit, said his community had an emergency plan in place "well before this happened, so you could say we were already prepared."

Safety measures for inspecting mail have been added. "We are looking at the mail much closer, inspecting it in one central location rather than the various departments in City Hall," he said, noting that this is coordinated by an emergency manager.

"Our insurance coverages were all set prior to this event and we dont have a renewal for another year," he added. "Were looking at the excess insurance market to see if any of the carriers will have a problem, but we dont think that will happen."

"We dont think were a target, but were prepared through our mutual aid agreements with other communities. Weve been preparing, literally, for many of these type of events for years," he said.

John Miall Jr., director of risk management for Asheville, N.C., said the city has had an emergency response plan in place that has been updated annually for the last seven years.

Now, he said, "were going a step beyond that," by working with the local health department and the sheriffs office to discuss community responses and "looking broader than just the corporate limits of the city," he said.

New safety measures include adding personnel and closed-circuit cameras on the municipalitys 20,000-acre watershed, he said. "We took it for granted for years, because it adjoins the federal parkway, that its a secure location," he said. "The fact that the public can use that parkway gives us concern now to think about the security there."

Is their emphasis now less on property and more on people? "Absolutely," he said. "Most of our emergency planning was centered around natural disasters but we are really changing that focus." The same infrastructure will be used, but "I think our concern now is more focused on individuals and the community," he added.

Dorothy Archie, risk management and safety supervisor for Rock Hill, S.C., said the city has some emergency programs in place but is reviewing all safety measures. The city is adding security to control entrances of public buildings and facilities, she noted, and has also organized an emergency awareness response committee that is assessing the safety of its public facilities.

"With such an attack, were more concerned about our employees and being assured that they are safe and protected," she said. "That has to be our number one concern."

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, October 29, 2001. Copyright 2001 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.

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