Terror response: A tale of three cities

Michael Moran Senior correspondent

From giant New York State, to tiny Alpine County, Calif., public officials around the country Thursday faced a dilemma that has become sadly familiar: What to do about the "orange alert" order for trains and mass transit systems?

The order, issued by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff following deadly attacks in London, resulted in actions around the United States as different as apples and oranges. Among the factors weighing heavily upon these officials is the enormous costs incurred in previous alerts even in places where the likelihood of an attack seems remote.

MSNBC.com looked at three, in particular: the state of New York, the city of Portland, Maine, and the rural administration of Alpine County, Calif. The question: Nearly four years after the 9/11 attacks, how are federal alerts interpreted? Experts say Thursday’s response suggests a maturing perspective on the alerts, though some still question whether the value of the color-coded threat system.

In New York state, where nearly 3,000 people died in the 9/11 attacks, and in Portland, Maine, home to an airport used by some of the 9/11 attackers, the response began well before Chertoff raised the threat level.

Officials in New York deployed thousands of police and emergency workers to mass transit hubs; Portland confined its response to phone calls to local transportation agencies; and in Alpine County, along the mountainous border with Nevada, the Thursday attacks occurred at a time when most people were still asleep, and officials appeared to take the whole thing in stride.

“What we’re seeing is that many local leaders are starting to be more judicious in how they react,” says Juliette Kayyem, a counter-terrorism expert at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and a consultant to MSNBC TV. “Chertoff’s comments present a paradox for every jurisdiction. He specifically said there’s no credible threat to the U.S., but then raised the issue of copycats. What a mayor or county commissioner outside the big coastal cities should do is not really clear.”

Clarity in Albany
News of Thursday’s bombing attacks on London reached New York State Gov. George Pataki through the state’s emergency management system.

"I was at home upstate when I got a call from the state police informing me of the bombs in London, then shortly after that I contacted my security people," Pataki said in an interview. By 6 a.m., he said, "they had already taken taken steps to do things like check trains with canine units, add extra security to bridges and tunnels."

By 8 a.m., Pataki was conferring by telephone with the governors of neighboring New Jersey and Connecticut, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the head of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the bridges, tunnels and three international airports in the area.

The result was an executive order from Pataki "so New Jersey and Connecticut police could ride commuter trains in with police powers into New York."

New York estimates the cost of an orange alert to New York City alone at about $5 million a week. Still, given local history, there is an enormous tolerance for what might be called “local defense spending.”

"This is something we’re not even concerned about," he said. "You have to put the security of people first, then we'll work with the federal government about the costs."

For obvious reasons, governments at various levels are not eager to provide details of their deployments in the current alert. At the same time, particularly in cities regarded as realistic potential targets, they are eager to show they are reacting to the federal directive. Officials from Boston to Miami to Los Angeles, for instance, decided to deploy additional officers to rail and bus depots. In some cities – including Washington – officers swept commuter trains and stations. Special weapons units were put on alert, as were some National Guard units dealing with weapons of mass destruction.

Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley says his city, too, decided to deploy extra police to mass transit well before the federal move. “It’s nice that they eventually got around to declaring an orange alert, which means they’ll theoretically pick up the overtime. But we had made that call at 6 a.m.”

But the cost can't be totally ignored, experts say. The Government Accountability Office, a non-partisan arm of Congress,  estimates that in an orange alert that spanned the 2003 holiday period — from Dec. 21, 2003  to Jan. 9, 2004 — New York City spent over $15 million, and Los Angeles $9.3 million. In the smaller city of Knoxville, Tenn., local officials have told the federal government that every day of an orange alert costs them about $3,000.

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