They’ve already bought chemical hoods, anthrax-sensing devices and a thermal-imaging apparatus capable of spying the amount of poison-laced coffee in a Styrofoam cup.

Now emergency preparedness officials in Douglas County are shifting into a higher gear to prepare for a terrorist attack — and more. They’re planning to buy a new bus, trailer or recreational vehicle to serve as a mobile command center during emergencies.

“Escape hoods can only be used when there’s toxic stuff up in the air,” said Paula Phillips, the county’s director of emergency management. “A mobile command center can be used at a big fire, or at a hostage event, or at a crime scene investigation that’s going on for a long time. It has the biggest variety of uses.

“It’s not limited to just terrorist type of activity.”

The purchase would soak up all of the nearly $360,000 allocated to the county this year through homeland security grants from the federal government. Such grants, funneled through the state, help local governments brace for future biological threats, chemical attacks, explosive incidents or other unthinkable perils.

This year’s allocation represents a major financial leap for the county. During the previous four years, the county had been given access to a total of $126,000 — money that officials used to buy sensors, showers, chemical tents, water heaters and other equipment to be used during emergencies.

But this year, as shifts in the state’s risk-assessment formula moved the county up the priority list, the $360,000 grant will afford officials even more flexibility in making investments.

Terrorism chances ‘remote’

“My feeling is that the likelihood of a terrorist incident in Lawrence, Kansas, is pretty remote but that a lot of this stuff has spin-off benefits,” such as increasing financing during tight budget times, said Charles Jones, chairman of the Douglas County Commission. “We try to make it do the best possible good for Douglas County.”

But such financial flexibility shouldn’t be confused for a blank check, said Bob Johnson, a county commissioner.

“It would be, in my judgment, sinful if that money were to be spent frivolously,” Johnson said. “We won’t be able to find the money locally, that’s for sure, and so if we have the opportunity to get federal funds, we better be darned careful how we spend it.”

Regional bioterrorism drills conducted (10-13-03) State to test agroterrorism response (6-15-03) Douglas County Emergency Management Agency Kansas Emergency Management Association Kansas Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council

Commissioners approve purchases made using grant money.

A recommendation to use this year’s allocation to buy a mobile command vehicle — already rated the top priority of the Lawrence Police Department, Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, Lawrence-Douglas County Fire & Medical and other municipal and rural law-enforcement and fire departments in the county — will be forwarded to commissioners by the end of the summer.

The idea is to replace the county’s existing mobile command vehicle: a converted 1983 school bus purchased and upgraded for a total of $28,000.

The bus features hookups for land-line telephones, a bathroom, a water tank and an array of other equipment needed to accommodate battalion chiefs, police leaders and other officials charged with coordinating and managing an emergency. The command center has rolled to an apartment complex devastated by a tornado, a riverbank in response to a drowning, a rural home site for a hostage standoff and dozens of other situations.

Old bus to go

The Douglas County mobile command center bus heads into River Front Park on Sept. 21, 2003, to help search along the Kansas River bankfor a missing person. Emergency officials are planning to purchase a new mobile command center, which could be used by all county emergency agencies at crime scenes, fires, natural disasters or other situations.

The vehicle also lacks a meeting room for planners, wireless connections for laptop computers and large wipe boards to chronicle details of changing operations.

The rusting floor, aging engine and manual transmission don’t help much, either.

“It’s old,” said Mark Bradford, deputy chief of Lawrence-Douglas County Fire & Medical. “There have been problems in the past with it starting, and just running and getting there. … It’s just to the point where it needs to be retired and replaced.”

The exact form of the new mobile command center remains to be determined. Leaders of response agencies — police, fire, ambulance, emergency preparedness and emergency communications — will meet in the coming months to decide just what should be included, and how it should be arranged.

The new vehicle could be another bus, Phillips said, or perhaps a recreational vehicle or a trailer that could be towed to each site.

No matter what form the project takes, she said, the county would be getting the “most bang for our buck” by investing in a mobile command center.

“We think that having this type of a vehicle would serve all of the agencies — volunteer fire departments to professional fire departments, small-department law enforcement to big-department law enforcement,” she said. “It’s probably one of the few multifunctional pieces of equipment that everybody has access to and everybody can use.”