To manage disasters, there needs to be a national strategy, whichmeans a partnership between federal, state, local, private sector,and community leadership for an entire community of preparedness.
Consolidating existing programs into a flexible grant regimedesigned to meet the unique needs of the various states whilepromoting an all-hazards approach, mutual assistance agreements,and interoperability is crucial.
In today's hostile environment, improving the ability of America'sfirst responders to mitigate the consequences of a WMD terroristattack is vital to increasing the nation's overall level ofdomestic preparedness.
State and local first response agencies are at the forefront of thenation's ability to respond to terrorist acts. In fact, these localagencies will nearly always be the first to respond to an incidentand will be the determining factor in mitigating the consequencesof an attack.
A year has passed since September 11, and while the federalgovernment has done much to increase the nation's security, morestill needs to be done. Now is the time to take these next criticalsteps to ensure the protection of the American people.