NCJ Number
213249
Journal
Police Chief Volume: 73 Issue: 2 Dated: February 2006 Pages: 82-84,86
Date Published
February 2006
Length
4 pages
Annotation
This article suggests specific actions that public safety personnel, municipal officials, businesses, and residents might take under condition "orange" (high threat of a terrorist attack) of the Federal alert system.
Abstract
The Homeland Security Advisory System (HSAS) is a system for indicating to the public and government agencies and officials a threat condition based on information processed at the Federal level. Various threat levels are attached to colors as follows: green: low condition; blue: guarded condition; yellow: elevated condition; orange: high condition; and red: severe condition. The Nation has been at the orange high-threat condition only a few times since September 11, 2001; and the red threat alert has yet to be issued. It is important that the public and municipal and State officials have some understanding of their appropriate duties and actions under the orange threat condition. This article lists such suggested measures. Fifteen actions by public safety and municipal officials are suggested. These include a heightened awareness when responding to incident scenes, a review of local emergency response plans, a testing of communication mechanisms among agencies, an increased number of inspections for and attention to suspicious packages, and more restrictive access to all municipal buildings. Some suggestions for residents under the orange alert are to be patient with heightened security measures, seek knowledge about and be attentive to suspicious activities, and take reasonable personal and family security precautions. Actions by businesses might include placing a company's security and emergency-response teams on heightened alert, inspection of intrusion-detection systems and other security technologies, and the increased inspection of deliveries or possibly the transfer of all deliveries to off-site locations.