New Focus on Terrorism in Years After Attacks

The attacks of 9/11 brought a new level of awareness to local emergency services in the decade since the Twin Towers fell.

Mark Brownlie, then manager of the Township’s Office of Emergency Management, remembers working from home that morning when he received a call from his brothers—a police officer in East Brunswick.

The call informed him about the attacks in New York City.

Minutes later, a call from Robert Gazaway, Hillsborough’s Police Chief then. Within the hour, he, the township department heads, the police, rescue squads, fire companies and school officials met to discuss how they would handle the tragedy locally.

The questions flew—what, if any, were the threats to Hillsborough? How would the schools handle children with parents working in New York City or teachers with spouses there?

“Terrorism became more of an impact in the United States at that point,” Brownlie said. “It became one of the threats.”

He remembers adding a section on terrorism incidents to the township’s emergency management plan in the months following the tragedy. At that point, the office relied on plans issued by the National Office of Emergency Management, developed because of 9/11.

Saying it was a wake-up call might be an understatement. Prior to the attacks, terroristic threats hadn’t been considered as thoroughly on a local level.

“The different agencies were going to realize what their duties would be in that situation,” Brownlie said.

Some of the changes included a greater focus on bioterrorism, in part because of the attacks and because of the anthrax scare that followed. Each branch of the township’s emergency services saw changes to its plans, whether it involved placing gas masks in police vehicles or handling the medical end of a bioterrorism threat, Brownlie said.

“There’s no question that what we were trained to do increased,” he said. “We had to go through more training.”

Paying for some of the training, particularly for the fire companies—Brownlie is also a firefighter with Hillsborough Volunteer Fire Company No. 3—came from members’ own pockets, he added. Other additions, like the Office of Emergency Management’s mobile command center, came through private and public grants, according to Brownlie.

But another change came from the attacks, this time in people’s attitudes, Brownlie said. For some community members, 9/11 was a signal to join the emergency services in their town.

“Some people saw the attacks as an opportunity to give back now and to help out the community as emergency workers,” he said. “I see some people who saw it and it changed what they are. I see some people where it just came along and they took things for granted.”

Though he’s since passed the management of the Office of Emergency Management to John Sheridan, the focus on various forms of terrorism remains.

“I don’t believe it is something we should ever forget,” Brownlie said. “My college room mate worked for Cantor Fitzgerald and was killed in the attacks. I don’t think it’s something we should ever forget. Hopefully, it is not something we will experience ever again.”