| September 14, 2006 - (Washington, D.C.) – U.S. Sen. David Vitter praised today’s passage of the Warning, Alerts, and Response (WARN) Act amendment to the port security bill in the U.S. Senate. Vitter is a co-author of the legislation. “Hurricanes Katrina and Rita vividly illustrated the need for a fast, effective emergency relief system. Louisiana residents remember the hopeless feeling of having no means of sending and receiving information during a major disaster,” said Vitter. “The WARN system would provide the funding needed to modernize our emergency warning system and ensure that all communities have the ability to receive vital emergency information.” The system created by the WARN Act amendment would contain a vast network to broadcast messages across varying forms of media, including cellular phones, email devices, television and radio, as well as less traditional forms of media, such as sirens. Also, this amendment provides federal, state and local emergency officials with the capacity to geographically target their alert messages to communities at risk – helping to prevent large-scale panic. WARN also establishes a grant program to assist communities lacking telecommunications infrastructure with installing sirens and other devices to provide all individuals with the ability to receive necessary warnings. Most important, the amendment provides more than $250 million for research, development and use of technologies to manage these alert systems. “While most in Louisiana are concerned with natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes and floods, we cannot ignore the very real threat of terrorism in our state. As we tragically learned five years ago, no area of the country is immune from a terrorist attack,” Vitter said. “Louisiana’s port system is one of the largest and most active in the world, and that makes it a potential target for terrorism. The WARN Act amendment would update our national emergency alert system in case of a terrorist attack and provide our first responders with a key tool in further securing our state and the nation.” The U.S. Senate is expected to pass the port security bill in the near future, and then the legislation will then move to a House-Senate Conference. |