Communities Want Details on Coded Alerts

Communities facing budget woes and growing national security demands want more details about terrorism risks so they can better tailor their responses to the nation’s new color-coded alert system. Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney told a House committee Thursday that state and local officials want to know if an increased security threat is targeted at specific areas of the country or types of targets, such as bridges. “Every community cannot be equally vulnerable at the same time to terrorism,” said Romney, in testimony before the House Select Committee on Homeland Security. He and other emergency services officials told the hearing that they have learned to handle each higher alert differently. For instance, Romney said, when the country went to orange alert at the start of the Iraq war, Massachusetts beefed up security; but with the more recent higher alert, “the threat was more generic and we took less aggressive action.” Full Story