9/11's impact at home

Locals: Communication, training have improved

Local first responder agencies have greatly improved communication and training to both prevent and respond to a potential terrorist attack since the Sept. 11 attacks that occurred almost 15 years ago, according to officials.

The 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks is Sunday.

“I feel like we’ve come a long way,” said Duval Arthur, St. Mary Parish homeland security and emergency preparedness director.

“I feel like we’re prepared now, and we look for things. We report things. And I think in the long run, it’ll make us safer,” Arthur said.

Arthur was Berwick police chief on Sept. 11, 2001. Upon hearing of the attacks, local officials made sure critical infrastructure was locked down and secured, as leaders had no idea whether the attacks would be nationwide or just focused on the Washington, D.C. and New York areas, Arthur said.

Arthur was hired as a grant writer for the homeland security program in 2004. The parish always had an emergency preparedness director, but the homeland security portion was created in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

In 2002, the Patriot Act formed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as part of a push to get an entity to handle homeland security in every parish and county in the country. The U.S. government formed homeland security offices “to make everybody communicate with one another,” he said.

The objective of the local homeland security offices is to train local law enforcement and first responders on how to respond to “terrorist crimes,” what signs of terrorist activity to look for and ways of reporting possible terrorist activity, Arthur said.

St. Mary Parish homeland security officials provided weapons of mass destruction response training to all first responders in the parish, Arthur said.

Lack of communication among different organizations within the U.S. government led to the success of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Arthur said.

Government officials knew a lot about the individuals who carried out the attacks and about the training they received, but they never sat “at the same table and talked about it,” Arthur said.

St. Mary Parish Sheriff Mark Hebert said that since 9/11, parish officials are more attentive to what happens in the parish and worldwide. Law enforcement officials now pay particularly close attention to what occurs in jails for possible terrorist connections.

“We train a little different. We think different. And we do things different in regards to terrorism today,” Hebert said.

Hebert was warden of the St. Mary Parish Law Enforcement Center on 9/11. He heard about the first plane hitting the World Trade Center and then saw the second plane hit live on TV.

“Since 9/11, we’ve come a long way with sharing information … in regards to terrorism,” Hebert said.

Just because something doesn’t directly affect a certain agency, sharing data educates officials on what to look for to prevent a potentially “horrific result,” Hebert said.

“The networking has changed a lot for the better, and there’s always room for improvement,” Hebert said.

Morgan City Fire Chief Alvin Cockerham said 9/11 was “a lesson to everybody.” First responders go through much different procedures than they used to, have gotten lots of new equipment and more training for whatever they may encounter.

Officials are still adapting to all of those changes and will continue to do so, Cockerham said.

On 9/11, Cockerham was working with a contractor in Stephensville. He was also a captain with the Morgan City Fire Department at the time. He didn’t know right away that it was a terrorist attack, but the first person he thought about was Osama Bin Laden.

Once Cockerham started learning more about the attacks, he thought it was worse than the Pearl Harbor attacks.

After 9/11, the American public realized there are people in the country who weren’t born and raised here, who want to destroy the U.S., Arthur said.

“Up until 9/11, everybody kind of just took things for granted. … In this country, nobody really ever took a second look at people,” Arthur said.

Terrorists tried to find ways “to destroy our country,” by flying one plane into the Pentagon, and attempting to hit either the White House or Capitol, Arthur said.

They were able to “instill fear in everybody in our country,” but they woke “a sleeping giant,” Arthur said.

The St. Mary Parish Sheriff’s Office also focuses on being prepared for terrorist attacks, and Hebert plans to send a couple of employees to an anti-terrorism seminar in November in New Orleans.