Nation Must Face Up to Calamity Risks

March 2, 2004 12:22 PM

New York Daily News
By Tom Daniel

It is hard to imagine a worse day than 9/11. But, hard as it may be to imagine, we need to plan for a much worse day, a day in which casualties would number not in the thousands but in the hundreds of thousands.

We have framed a broad national response to terrorism, deployed troops abroad, created the Department of Homeland Security, begun the work of improving our intelligence and seen researchers focus on developing state-of-the-art anti-terrorist efforts.

In one crucial area, however, we are still lagging: planning for an event that could cause a million or more casualties.

This could come in any of three forms: nuclear, either a small bomb or an effective attack against a nuclear power facility near a large city; chemical, with casualties as high as 3 million, or biological, which could be devastating in a densely populated city.

New York City and New York State already have begun contemplating this kind of scenario. And the Department of Homeland Security's Metropolitan Medical Response System, though planning for no more than 10,000 casualties, is also a good first step. But we need to accelerate this work drastically.

No one agency has stepped forward to assert authority for this planning. The mix of those involved - public and private, local and federal, volunteer and professional - has left a void that needs to be filled. We also are embarked on other missions that consume attention and resources.

It is difficult to find people, even responsible decision makers, to focus on responding to a calamity in which 1 million people are injured and killed. New York may be leading the way, but we need the federal government and municipalities, universities and academic medical centers. We need innovation, such as training health providers not traditionally involved in emergency care - dentists, visiting nurses - to be ready for new responsibilities.

We need to act as though this were a national mobilization, because if and when we have to confront a million casualties, that is what will be required.

As horrifying as it is to consider, we cannot afford to waste any more time.

After all, just think back to Sept. 10, 2001, and what seemed incomprehensible then.