The Center’s three-part series
A thread running through these stories by Center reporters Jason Smathers and Sarah Karon: Homeland security funding is dwindling. How are emergency response agencies trying to do more with less?
Part One: Funding
A decade after 9/11 attacks, Wisconsin’s homeland security funding falls short Experts disagree on how we’ll be affected. Aug. 28, 2011.
Part Two: Infrastructure
From ports to power plants, millions spent to avert terrorism attacks But funding to protect utilities, ports and other critical infrastructure has all but disappeared. Sept. 4, 2011.
Part Three: Emergency response
Emergency response often uncoordinated in post-9/11 era Communication breakdowns and other problems plague rural areas especially. Sept. 11, 2011.
- Sidebar: Marinette school standoff communication was ‘large problem’ Green Bay Press-Gazette.
- Interview excerpts: In their own words: Top homeland security officials answer ‘Are we safer?’
Multimedia and data
Chart: Total funding
Homeland security funding overview, 2003-2011 The Center compiled data on dozens of grant programs to capture a rare picture of total homeland security spending in the state, revealing a big drop for 2011.
Map: Lessons learned
What they learned in the disaster: Agencies’ after-action reports Emergency responders’ accounts, often frank, of their successes and failures after disasters both real and simulated. These “after-action” reports have never been published in one place; the Center summarized, archived and mapped 75 of them.
Regional stories from Gannett Wisconsin Media
Nuclear plant safety
Nuclear security teams prepare with mock attacks Guards for the Kewaunee nuclear plant get a “paramilitary level of training,” reports the Herald Times Reporter of Manitowoc.
Nuclear plant: Evacuation plans in place, but officials don’t expect all to leave Manitowoc has practiced evacuating about 1,600 people at a time, but farmers say it’s unrealistic to move livestock in an emergency, according to the Herald Times Reporter.
Airport security
TSA touts safer airports, but security breaches continue Of the more than 25,000 breaches nationwide since November 2001, more than half involve people entering supposedly secure airport areas, federal officials found. The Green Bay Press-Gazette.
Post-9/11 policing
At Lambeau Field and beyond, how a police force stepped up security after 9/11 “It’s forced us to work together,” said Green Bay police Lt. Jim Runge of joint trainings. The Green Bay Press-Gazette.
The nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television, other news media and the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by the Center do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.
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