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The WARN Act is vital to secure America's homeland
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August 15, 2006 - Greenville News - As I travel around South Carolina this month, talking with constituents, I look forward to giving them a report on what we are doing in Congress to help secure our homeland, our prosperity and our shared values.
One thing I plan to focus on is a key piece of legislation that I have introduced called the Warning, Alerts and Response Network (WARN) Act. I believe it will be a vital link between first responders and those caught by a natural disaster or terrorist attack. As the recent terrorist arrests in London remind us, we are at war with a lethal and determined enemy, and we must continually improve our abilities to respond to new threats.
We know that when disaster strikes, minutes matter. Our first responders need the tools to immediately communicate with people who are in harm's way. For decades, the Emergency Broadcast System has largely been the only available tool. But as people are increasingly on the move, getting word out via television and radio alone is not as effective. As we learned in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, we need to do more.
The WARN Act does just that, by building on the foundation of Emergency Broadcast System and bringing it into the 21st century.
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More than 200 million Americans subscribe to wireless devices: Blackberries, cell phones or other PDAs. The WARN Act leverages these new mobile capabilities -- in addition to television and radio -- to provide alerts that will save lives during a disaster.
The need for this system is obvious. In addition to the recently foiled airline plot, one year ago, terrorists successfully attacked the London subway system, brutally killing dozens. We also recently learned that terrorists were targeting the commuter lines running under New York Harbor. And several weeks ago, terrorists killed 300 and injured over 700 innocent men, women and children in India.
If the unthinkable happens, and we are attacked with a chemical, biological, radiological or any other type of weapon, we must be prepared to respond.
The WARN Act establishes a system that represents a major advance in emergency management. We know that the most effective way to save lives is to keep people out of impacted areas and efficiently evacuate those who are affected.
Under the WARN system, we will be able to tell some people to shelter in place. Others can be given instructions to evacuate in certain directions depending on their location or be told to avoid the impacted area altogether -- preventing first responders from having to manage new victims.
And the uses of this new national alerting system extend well beyond terrorist attacks to man-made or natural disasters.
Just one year and a half ago, residents in Graniteville were exposed to a massive chlorine gas release. The train crash that caused the release occurred at 2:39 in the morning. A beeping television or radio is not much help when its owner is sleeping.
What could have been helpful would have been if the emergency managers in the area could have rung the cell phones of all the individuals in the affected community and instructed them to evacuate out of the chlorine plume and get to safer ground.
The new system set up by the WARN Act will also have significant impact for the response to natural disasters -- something that is incredibly important for a coastal state like South Carolina, which faces an always unpredictable Atlantic hurricane season.
This year, experts had predicted a strong season, warning storm-weary coastal states to expect three to four major hurricanes Category 3 or above.
If one of these makes landfall, we know it will trigger a massive evacuation. The system created by the WARN Act will provide crucial information to aid in evacuation and recovery. It will alert evacuees to where the closest shelter with beds is -- where ice is being distributed after the storm -- and what roads are not useable as evacuation routes.
I am pleased that the WARN Act enjoys the bipartisan co-sponsorship of Sen. Ben Nelson from Nebraska, who worked with me earlier this year to clear it through the Senate Commerce Committee.
Democratic Leader Harry Reid from Nevada recently suggested that "it is time to get to work on the pressing problems facing our country." I challenge Sen. Reid and other Democrats to do just that and work with us to quickly pass this important legislation through the Senate when we return in September.
Our dedicated first responders need this critical tool to help save lives and secure our homeland. That is why I will continue to work with both Republicans and Democrats to ensure that we act on the lessons of past threats and disasters by implementing the WARN Act.
U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint of Greenville was elected to his current office in November 2004. He is chairman of the Disaster Prediction and Prevention Subcommittee. He also has served three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. He can be reached at www.demint.senate.gov.
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