As we were finishing up the project on local homeland security in this issue (p. 26), we kept checking in on news from the mind-boggling tragedy in New Orleans. Just before our deadline, reports trickled in that in 2004, the Bush administration had cut funding for flood and hurricane projects for the area by 44 percent in the past four years.
A chill went up my spine — we were wrapping up a project that concludes the White House has failed to secure some of the nation’s — including Charlotte’s — most potentially catastrophic terrorist targets, and that the current administration has actually derailed Congressional efforts to improve security at those targets.
“Oh my God, here we go again,” one staffer said, sighing.
We decided some months ago to look into the state of Charlotte’s security from terrorist attacks on the fourth anniversary of the 9/11 strikes, but we had no way of knowing how closely the results of our research would parallel the political background to the current disaster on the Gulf Coast.
Why is the White House not stepping up to the plate to secure our most dangerous facilities? It’s not the purpose of this project to determine the reasons for that neglect, but in view of last week’s revelations, common sense points to the current administration’s strong ideological aversion to regulating businesses, and the fact that the Bush campaigns have benefited from tens of millions of dollars in contributions from the chemical and nuclear industries.
In our investigation, a team of reporters consisting of Sam Boykin, Tara Servatius, Karen Shugart and yours truly looked at what progress local officials have made in preparing for the worst. We also examined what would happen in case of successful terrorist attacks on the area’s nuclear plants and chemical facilities and inland port terminal (did you know we had one of those?). We delved into exactly what, if anything, has been done in the past four years to secure those potential targets from terrorist attack. Finally, we pored over existing evacuation plans for the Charlotte area in case something we all pray will never happen — like the 9/11 attacks or Hurricane Katrina — did indeed come to pass.
This article appears in Sep 7-13, 2005.
