State firms form groups for disaster response
If disaster strikes at next week's Democratic National Convention, Boston-area businesses will have an unprecedented new seat at the emergency response command center -- and tens of millions of dollars in material and services lined up to help respond.
After months of discussions, the imminent arrival of 35,000 delegates, journalists, and politicos has spurred more than 20 area corporations to form a new Massachusetts Business Response Network. It inventories everything from warehouse space and hazardous-materials suits to excavators and portable generators -- and executives with skills suitable for crisis response -- that businesses are prepared to make available to public safety officials in the event of a terrorist strike or other disaster.
The network, whose backers include EMC Corp., Genzyme Corp., Partners HealthCare, Raytheon Co., and Shawmut Design and Construction Inc., is modeled on a similar New Jersey effort completed last year. That sought to avoid, in the case of a disaster, a repeat of the logistical snarls as hundreds of businesses volunteered people, equipment, and goods to respond to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.
The Democratic convention is also driving another unprecedented example of coordination between area businesses and public safety. As state emergency management officials open a command center in an underground bunker in Framingham, representatives from a business group called the New England Disaster Recovery Information Exchange will for the first time have a designated seat alongside agencies like the State Police, Massachusetts National Guard, US Coast Guard, and the state Department of Public Health.
Members of the nonprofit exchange, which was formed in 1991, envision being able to get information about incidents and threats to companies much more rapidly than in the past, and also enlist private security forces as the eyes and ears for public safety officials.
"We've always worked on an informal basis with the private side, but we felt it was important to really make this part of a formalized state plan," said Peter Judge, spokesman for the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency. "It's a great resource for us for bi-directional communication. You don't have to rely on friendships and connections to know what's going on."
The US Secret Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have their own security coordination center in Boston. State officials have opted to use the 1950s-era civil defense bunker adjacent to State Police headquarters in Framingham, which they have used for managing winter storms, hurricanes, and the "Y2K" New Year's Eve of 1999-2000.
Exchange president Ed Deveau said, "This is a major precedent. God forbid, if a big event happens down the road, the state, the city, and private industry will be in a much better position to communicate." The organization will be using a blast-messaging technology provided by Envoy WorldWide Inc. of Bedford to send instant security updates to over 1,000 corporate executives' cellphones, e-mail accounts, and portable messaging devices.
Deveau said 21 executives from exchange member companies have undergone special training for their eight-hour shifts inside the bunker, which will go into a 24-hour-a-day operation starting tomorrow morning at 8. "There's a basic list of do's and don'ts," Deveau said. "It's like being a kid and being invited to the adult table at Thanksgiving: Mind your manners. Don't disrupt things while you're sitting there."
While exchange involvement in convention security monitoring and coordination will extend only through Friday, the Business Response Network will become a permanent enhancement for state disaster response plans. The US Department of Homeland Security has issued nearly $200,000 to support the effort.
"One of the lessons coming out of 9/11 was that there were a lot of folks in the private sector who wanted to offer help, and there were public sector officials who welcomed that assistance, but the mechanisms for clearing that in the middle weren't that developed," said Cesar Brea of Business Executives for National Security, an association backing the effort. With the incentive of the deadline to be ready for the DNC, Brea said, "tens of millions of dollars that will be accessible that wouldn't have been available otherwise."
Besides equipment and supplies that would be used to clean up after a truck bomb or chemical, biological, or nuclear attack, companies are also offering disaster response space. Polaroid Corp., for example, has pledged to let public officials use part of its 330,000-square-foot distribution center in Norton, near Interstate 495. Raytheon is also offering warehouse space and secured command-center rooms in undisclosed locations "dispersed throughout the metro area," spokesman David J. Shea said.
Judge said that if Boston were targeted for a terror strike, having space well outside the city to intercept, inventory, and then allocate incoming supplies would be crucial.
"Sometimes you create a secondary disaster dealing with all this unsolicited help that can show up," Judge said. "Without space like this, it's hard to separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of what's coming in, and what you actually need."
Peter J. Howe can be reached at howe@globe.com.
