MEMA prepared for terror threats Agency has developed security plan

AUGUSTA – For years the Maine Emergency Management Agency has maintained a low-profile existence at its Camp Keyes headquarters, springing into public view only in response to natural disasters or industrial accidents.

But the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, injected a sense of urgency into the daily lives of those who work in the agency that officially falls under the jurisdiction of Gen. Joseph Tinkham, commissioner of the Department of Defense, Veterans and Emergency Management. His deputy commissioner, Brig. Gen. Bill Libby, maintains that his staff and members of the Maine National Guard have responded well to the challenges of devising strategic plans for coping with future acts of terrorism.

It’s a slightly different mission from the concerns posed by the now deactivated Maine Yankee nuclear power plant or hazardous material spills that Libby used to worry about.

“We certainly didn’t have terrorism clearly in our focus prior to September 11, although we had undertaken some terrorism planning as early as 1999,” he said. “But after September, our focus changed.”

Within moments of the attack, Tinkham and Gov. Angus King were notified and MEMA’s emergency operations center was activated. The first major decision of the day was made by the governor, who evacuated more than 5,000 employees from the State House complex.

“We knew other planes were missing but we had no idea whether Maine was going to be a target,” Libby recalled. “The governor decided to evacuate the State House complex because at the moment it appeared that symbolic government targets seemed to be at risk. Because of that, the immediate threat that posed the greatest potential loss of life was the Capitol complex.”

Since then, the state agency has been involved with a number of security missions including anthrax scares that kept lab workers at the state Bureau of Health busy from November through February. Art Cleaves, executive director of MEMA, said homeland security in Maine covers a wide range of topics including early warnings of events, responding to developing critical situations and staying abreast of bioterrorism reports.

Cleaves and Libby credited a four-day homeland security meeting held in May in Bangor for providing most of the basis for the state’s current policies to safeguard Maine residents. In fact, Cleaves said he believed that because of the work that was accomplished at the seminar, Maine is better positioned than most states at this time to deal with terrorist threats.

“A lot of that has to do with the May meeting in Bangor,” he said. “All of the right people were there and we were able to start building a process right away. So it was to our benefit that, as a state, we’re small and able to communicate with each other very well.”

Since Sept. 11, 2001, Libby said, MEMA staff has bolstered security in federal buildings at Camp Keyes – sometimes with armed guards. The agency also has provided beefed-up security for the state’s airports and continues to maintain 51 employees at the state border to assist federal efforts.

Beyond that, Libby admitted some frustration at attempting to discuss his department’s readiness without really explaining the precise nature of the mission.

“We’re in the process of executing parts of the strategic plan developed at the Bangor meeting as we speak,” he said. “We haven’t published a list and we do not intend to publish a list of vulnerabilities perceived in the state, for obvious reasons,” he said.

In addition to areas visible to the public, MEMA also was actively involved in the last legislative session, crafting changes to various laws to protect security plans from freedom of information inquiries and to manage the potential of large-scale quarantine events. The general expected those efforts to continue in the next legislative session as the state’s response to terrorism continues to evolve.

At MEMA, Libby’s staffers prefer to contemplate the future, rather than the past.

“I think all of us firmly believe that it’s simply a matter of time before there is another terrorism attack and no one knows where, when or what form it will take,” Libby said. “I think most Americans believe that we’re all still at risk.”