Local Officials See Changes Since 9/11

Local officials say one good thing that emerged after 9/11 was increased cooperation among first-responder agencies and more access to federal funding.

"Before 9/11, each town was its own entity," said First Assistant Fire Chief Don Geary of Morris Plains. "We've gotten closer together. It's, 'You specialize in this, we'll specialize in that.'"

"We are no longer just individual firehouses," Geary said. "Through the county, we are all part of task forces now. If anything major happens, we'll get a phone call from a MAC (Mutual Aid Coordinator). He's the one that deploys us to different places."

"The county, through Homeland Security grants, has bought a lot of equipment," Geary said. "They store it all over the county ... so they can't get hit in one shot. That was something that was learned from 9/11."

"They have pumpers; all kinds of equipment. The Morris Plains Fire department has an air truck that can fill our Scott [Air] Packs," Geary said. "It's completely self-contained. The tanks we use to go into fires - we can refill them on any site. We have over a mile of twelve-inch hose if we need it. We didn't have any of that before before 911. It's gotten a lot better."

According to Morris Township Mayor H. Scott Rosenbush,"With a lot of support from the federal government, we've developed regional radio frequencies; regional radio networks. We've done a much, much better job of emergency preparedness and it goes all the way down to the local level."

Morris Plains Police Chief Scott Thompson said that, "In the police departments we work closer together than we used to do. There are more shared services; shared information. Sharing intelligence is a big thing. At least from my perspective, it looks like the federal agencies work more closely with the local agencies than it seemed they did before."

"In Morris Plains, we rely on the county to help us with crime scene processing. Most towns do that because it's become such a specialized thing. We also switched to the county radio frequency. It's easier to talk to the surrounding towns."

"It encourages everybody to work together and it makes it easier when something big goes wrong."