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Release Date: 11/22/04 00:00:00
Washington, DC
Press Conference
November 22, 2004
SECRETARY RIDGE: Well, thank you, Kathy, for that overly kind and generous introduction. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for taking the time to join all of us today as we talk about this ongoing initiative that we began, that began in a conference room, the discussion began in a conference room December of '01, and a lot of people were asking the question, what could we do to help? What should our families do? What should we do as individual members of this country in a post-9/11 world?
And so I thank all of you, the many partners, not only up here in the front end of the room, but many partners in the audience, and I just want to say thank you for all the good work that you've done, and I'm pleased that you could join all of us to talk about how we're going to sustain this with different creative and some different ideas as we help America get ready.
I'm honored to be here with you today. I'm honored to have participated for almost three years with such great, loyal and steadfast partners in our efforts to better prepare the communities and the families of the country.
We can't secure the country from inside the Beltway. We need partners all over the country. We need them in the private sector, we need them on the state and locals, we need them in the broadcast industry, we need them in non-profits. We need to have everybody engaged, and that's one of the wonderful, remarkable characteristics of this Ready Campaign. We have -- America, I think, is very much engaged, and we need to sustain that.
This is the week we give thanks, so let me begin by offering mine. Thank you to NAB and NCTA for being such loyal and generous partners and for hosting this event, as well as the Ad Council and BBDO Worldwide is the company that pulled together the creative that you're going to see here in a very short while. I thank them all for their hard work in developing this campaign, and, of course, Marty, I thank you for your continued commitment and that of the American Red Cross to this vital issue. Everyone knows that the Red Cross is really the grandmother or the great-grandmother of all emergency preparedness efforts. I said the Red Cross is the grandmother of all -- (laughter.) I want to make sure there was no err in communication there. But Marty, you, your team, in the legacy and the history of the Red Cross, this hard work is critical to the progress we've made; we actually have a foundation out there that we're trying to build upon.
When the Department of Homeland Security was established, President Bush laid out very clear directives that have shaped our priorities and the goals moving forward to protecting this nation. You've heard me say them again and again, that in order to prevent an attack, there's no higher priority than prevention, detection, deterrence. But there's also a response and recovery, because we also have to live in the world within the Department of Homeland Security where we have to be prepared for the "what if" situation, or the "what if" scenario. And while we try to give readiness and preparedness the same kind of visibility as the work we do at borders and airports, domestically and internationally, on the prevention side or the detection side, sometimes the response and recovery side isn't quite as visible in the public's eye, and that's why your participation in this event today helps us, because one of the directives in the response and recovery side given to us by the President was to increase national preparedness.
We had a lot of help from private organizations, as I mentioned, such as the Red Cross, who has a long history of preparing this nation to meet disasters, and indeed, there's a unit within the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, that has worked in tandem with the Red Cross for decades to do the same thing.
We also have some new partners. From state and local governments who have developed their own preparedness plans and education campaigns, and from private citizens, who have taken the initiative to prepare their neighborhoods and their homes, our efforts at Homeland Security have encompassed a wide range of initiatives of which the Ready Campaign is perhaps one of the most integral parts.
For the preparedness message to resonate most effectively, it must be delivered at the local level or community level where it will make a difference. It's an absolutely essential component of a successful Ready Campaign. It must be delivered at the local level and the community level. That's why our partners, NCTA and the NAB, are so, so important.
We must continue to reach out to our local and state leaders, our city officials, our first responders and citizens, and to invest them with the tools, direction and necessary resources to prevent and recover from any potential disaster, whether natural or man-made.
I think most of you are familiar with our philosophy. We believe that homeland security is more than just a federal department. Homeland security is a national calling. All of us have a role and a responsibility in the protection of our country, and we must be both ready and willing to make security a priority.
That's why when we laid down key priorities for the Department on our first anniversary in March, those priorities included building more prepared communities. And that was certainly effort consistent with the national strategy that we are putting together for preparedness. And we've done so by developing procedures and policies that will guide our action in the event of a terrorist attack; conducting training and exercises to ensure that our first responders possess a necessary level of preparedness; enhancing partnerships with state and local governments, private sector institutions and other organizations; and funding the purchase of much-needed equipment for first responders, states, cities, and towns.
All of these activities contribute to a level of national preparedness that is absolutely critical to achieve our goal of a better prepared America.
At Homeland Security, we have worked with the state and local partners and my colleagues in the Cabinet to create a framework, a National Response Plan, for emergency preparedness planning that will guide and coordinate the integration of our national response capabilities. We're set to unveil this framework very soon.
The blueprint will enhance current federal capabilities and unify the team that will be charged with responding to potential attacks or disasters. And as part of the National Response Plan, we've worked very, very closely with the state and local government, with police chiefs and fire chiefs and emergency service personnel to build a National Incident Management System.
I must tell you, as a former government, 67 counties, we had an operations center, and we tried to make sure that all 67 counties and their operations centers were basically organized the same way. But we found shortly after 9/11 that among your states and territories, they all had variations on a theme, but there wasn't a consistent, single, unified, national, all-hazard plan. And one of the most significant accomplishments, I believe, of the Department -- not going to grab any headlines, you're not going to read too much about it, but the emergency professionals know it -- is that for the first time in the history of the country, there was a National Response Plan, there was a coordination at the federal level. There were five or six national response plans at the federal level; now there's one. We took the best practices, the concepts, the mechanisms out of those five, added a few more. You have the National Response Plan.
But now, at the county level and the state level, we have an Incident Management System. It will be identical. As a matter of fact, when I was down in Florida talking to one of the county supervisors, one of the emergency operations directors, he said they had received the NIMS and they didn't -- they installed it and they were using it to respond to the hurricanes. So the response in this all-hazard National Response Plan, I think, is something that's long overdue, and the Ready Campaign, again, is an inherent part of getting communities ready to respond and recover.
Under the National Response Plan and the National Incident Management System, all of the nation's emergency teams and authorities will use a common language and a common set of procedures when working individually and together to make America safe.
Now, we know emergency preparedness has changed much through the years. We now have equipment that can detect the presence of a bomb, sensors that can pick up trace amounts of biological agents, and storm-tracking systems that give us precious warning and preparation time.
And we have citizens that are absolutely ready to be engaged. We have professionals at all levels of government and the private sector who are smarter and better prepared than ever before.
Our history as Americans has been marked by citizens ever ready to lend a hand and answer the call of those in need. And in doing so, we have depended on our partners in the private sector, the academic community, non-profit arena, and all levels of government to help us engage and empower citizens to embrace a direct role, direct role of citizens, individuals and families, to secure their own homes, their freedoms, and their communities.
Our efforts at the Homeland Security Department have been centered around the work of the Ready Campaign and the Citizen Corps. It's not an exaggeration to say that Ready has truly taken off and greatly exceeded initial expectations. In the short time since its launch, the simple Ready message -- make a plan, get a kit, be informed -- has reached millions of American families. In this past year, we've built on the initial campaign with a launch of Ready Business, and the development of Ready Kids, which will kick off within the next several weeks.
In September, we were joined by more than 80 partners and all 56 states and territories in marking our first annual National Preparedness Month, a month in which nearly 60 million people heard the preparedness message. Yet the most important measure of accomplishment can be found in the number of Americans who have not only heard the message, but have actually taken action.
From coast to coast, 58 percent of American households have taken at least one of the three steps to prepare their homes and families, whether putting together an emergency kit, working out a family communication plan, or searching for information on what to do in the event of a disaster.
That number, that extraordinary number, is the result of a lot of hard work by many, many people and organizations represented in this room. The intent of the new ads unveiled today is to further galvanize our collective efforts so that we can make that number grow even larger. Look, I've talked about 58 percent of America, according to our survey, had done at least one of the three. We'd like to see 100 percent of America doing all three. Probably never get there, but I think that's an ambitious goal and we ought to keep it in front of our eyes and keep working until we get as close as possible.
Taking one step is great. We've taken a great start, we made a magnificent start, but it's just a start. But we need Americans to take all three steps, and we will keep working toward that aim.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is a long-term commitment, and together, we must be prepared to see it through for many years to come. Our great help in spreading the Ready message has been Citizen Corps. Citizen Corps is a volunteer organization that helps Americans find ways to make a personal investment in the security of their local community.
Both Ready and Citizen Corps have drawn upon the strength of our citizenry to make this nation stronger and more secure. It's our responsibility to sustain that momentum and push for even higher standards of preparedness.
At Homeland Security, we will continue to build on the Ready Campaign by creating a mentoring initiative through Ready Business, incorporating a school-based program that will complement the Ready Kids website, and renewing our commitment to National Preparedness Month. In pursuing this work, we look forward to the continued support and partnership we gain from those of you who are part of the extraordinary national effort. Your time and your commitment so far has been instrumental in helping us strengthen awareness and spearhead action through the citizenry and communities of this vast lane.
Bottom line, ladies and gentlemen, is that we're all in this together. Each of us bears the title of citizen, so we must also shoulder the responsibilities that accompany that great trust. And in doing so, we will ensure that future generations of citizens inherit more than just a title of citizen, but also the blessings of liberty that, in this great nation, the title of citizen represents.
Thank you very much. (Applause.)
MS. CROSBY: Thank you, Secretary Ridge. It is my very real pleasure to be here this afternoon in the company of so many wonderful organizations and partners who are supporting this important Emergency Preparedness Message. I would like to extend a very special thank you to both the National Association of Broadcasters and the National Cable Telecommunications Association for kindly hosting this event today, for your continued and generous support to the Advertising Council in all of our campaigns, and your unwavering commitment to bring Ready Campaign's life-saving messages to the nation.
Because of your generous support, our messages will be seen and heard by millions and millions of Americans. Since we launched the Ready Campaign with the Department of Homeland Security in February of 2003, the campaign has experienced unprecedented success. In fact, the Ready Campaign has been the Ad Council's most successful campaign launch in our 62-year history, which is very impressive. And the media community continues to give amazingly and generously by donating more than $310 million in advertising time and space since the campaign launched only 18 months ago, which is simply incredible.
We have a saying at the Ad Council, that if it runs, it'll work, and that is certainly true with Ready. The campaign website, ready.gov, has received more than 1.8 billion hits and 19 million unique visitors in just 18 months. The campaign's toll free number, 1-800-BE-READY, has received almost 215,000 calls and more than 3.6 million brochures have either been requested or downloaded from the website.
But more importantly, millions have taken action. In just a little bit more than a year, as Secretary Ridge mentioned earlier, our research has found that 58 percent of Americans have taken at least one step to prepare for a terrorist attack or another type of emergency, and that is a very significant behavioral change.
As these results demonstrate, the Ready Campaign is truly raising awareness and inspiring individuals to take action to prepare themselves and their families, but we have much more to do. Despite the campaign's many successes, there are many Americans who have yet to take even one simple, basic step towards preparedness. Our new public service campaign extends the core message that we started 18 months ago, which dealt with the issue of why you should be prepared and how to get prepared.
These new ads are directed specifically to parents because our research has shown us that parents are the leaders in preparing their families for all types of emergencies. Our goal is to motivate all parents to be prepared by making a family emergency plan. As you will see in just a moment, the new PSAs emphasize that everyone should have a plan in a very thought-provoking way. When you have a family, there's no reason not to have a plan and several very good reasons why you should.
The ads were developed pro bono by a highly talented group of people, BBDO New York, and on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security and my colleagues at the Ad Council, I would like to thank BBDO for both their creativity and their continuing commitment of time and effort on this critical issue.
Now let's take a look at the PSAs. Please roll the tape.
(Tape is played.)
QUESTION: I have sort of several questions that are all related to the same thing, which is, do you all have any control over when the ads air? In other words, would they air at night, during kids' programming, both? And what age are they aimed at? Are they only aimed at the parents or are they also aimed at getting kids to bug their parents to put together these plans? And was there any focus grouping or concern about whether these ads would scare younger kids below sort of the fourth grade, you know? Is my five-year-old going to see these while he's watching cartoons or eating his breakfast cereal and saying, you know, start asking (inaudible)?
MR. SACHS: Kathy, do you want to start off?
MS. CROSBY: Thank you. Those are good questions. First of all, every one of our campaigns is very much researched. These ads are targeted specifically towards parents, and because our advertising is donated to us by the graciousness of the media companies, we cannot control where the ads run. However, we make every effort possible to ensure that it runs in appropriate programming. It is certainly not our goal that this runs on Saturday morning cartoons. We are really targeting parents, so our goal is that they run in programming specific to parents. So that's the first part of the question.
The second part of the question is we did extensive research among parents about this, and in fact, when we were doing exploratory research, it was with oftentimes families who had not yet prepared and they would have their children in the room, and some of these very questions came directly from the kids saying, "Mom, what would our plan be? If I'm at school, what should I do?"
So the exploratory research helped us to come up with this concept, but then we went back out and talked to parents about the concept and we did not find at all from a perspective would parents be worried about their children seeing these spots. But again, the spots are not targeted towards children.
SECRETARY RIDGE: If I could just answer it real quick, too. I think one of the unique features of this kind of creative is we've had some preliminary discussions with major urban areas and this is really a Ready America plan, but if they want to take this and take the video and the printed material and make it Ready D.C., Ready New York, Ready Chicago, I think that way the sponsoring television and radio stations are more inclined to put it in primetime, or hopefully in the best time, the best slots available, as a public service announcement. So, again, this is a slight modification on what we did initially.
And then thirdly -- secondly, with regard to the children, we talk to a lot of parents and kids, and I think the commercials are sweet, they're gentle, and they're also provocative in a way so that children asking those questions are the kinds of questions, in fact, children actually ask those questions to mom and to dad. And all we're suggesting, this is only a difficult subject if the parents make it a difficult subject. It really depends on how they communicate with their children. But I think most parents have done a pretty good job talking to children about fire safety, talking to children about preventive measures, seat belts in cars, don't talk to strangers, talking to children about crime.
So I think we're not prescriptive in how they talk to their children, but I think most parents are going to be sensitive to how they frame it, and since there are many examples where they've actually helped modify and, I think, change children's conduct or direct children's conduct, we don't think this will be any different than anything else. The parents have been asked to do it for a long, long time. Someone at the Ad Council told me some time ago that some of the most successful ads they've ever run dealing with stopping cigarette consumption and smoking was through the children; the children got the parents to change.
So I think there are a lot of -- there's enormous opportunity here for parents to continue doing what they've done in the past, and that's handle delicate, difficult subjects as parents in a way that educates and informs. And I think kids, if there's a gray area, there's uncertainty, that's troubling. But if the children know what to do, they've got in the back of minds, gee, if something happens -- it doesn't have to be a terrorist event, any event that results in the dislocation of the family unit for a temporary period of time, the plan and the kit will be very, very helpful. But you need to talk to the kids about it.
Sir. Bob, you're going to moderate and you can answer, too. I'm sorry. (Laughter.)
QUESTION: Just a question --
SECRETARY RIDGE: I'd be happy to direct any questions to any other members of the panel.
QUESTION: It's for you, Mr. Secretary. (Laughter.)
You mentioned first responder training. I wanted to ask you a question about Homeland Security grants. Both the House and the Senate versions of the Intelligence Reform bill contain provisions that would have created new requirements for the distribution of those grants. I know the Department itself has made some revisions in terms of giving more money to the Urban Area Security Initiative.
My question is, if the reform bill doesn't pass or if Congress doesn't take any action to mandate new requirements for distributing the Homeland Security grants, what would the Department do in the '05 budget year above and beyond what it's already done, maybe to revise the way some of those monies are distributed?
SECRETARY RIDGE: Well, first of all, in the '05 budget we receive two pools of money: one will be distributed according to formula; the other would be distributed according to Urban Area Security Initiative. There we have the opportunity to direct how those dollars are being spent, and one of the directives that we intend on putting in the '05 budget will be to use some of these dollars in the 50 urban areas that have been identified to promote the Ready Campaign. We're not telling them how to do it, but we think it's absolutely important to get the local community engaged in the Ready Campaign.
So they're already -- Congress has already said there's one set of dollars that goes out by formula, another set that we take a look at population, population density, infrastructure, threat information, and it's that set that we can be a little bit more prescriptive in how we spend the money.
Sir.
QUESTION: Will the ads run in different languages or only run in English?
SECRETARY RIDGE: We have -- the first campaign -- that's a great question. The first campaign in Spanish is the Listo Campaign and I think we plan on having some print ads in Spanish as well. I'm not sure we've made a decision or arrangements to have any other -- have the creative done in another language. I think there's some discussions about that, but we wanted to get the base ads completed first before we moved on beyond that.
MS. COSBY: That's entirely accurate, Secretary Ridge. When we launched the Listo Campaign, again, it was based on research, what was most relevant to the Latino/Latina marketplace, and we developed the Listo Campaign and that really has only been out there for six months. So we do a process of continually analyzing how we're doing, but we do have a separately -- a wholly Spanish initiative out there right now.
SECRETARY RIDGE: And again, if these costs are eligible, the expense for promoting the Ready Campaign is an eligible expense for the '05 dollars going to the cities and the states, any initiative that they want to undertake to recognize the multiculturalism, the multiethnic nature of their cities or their states they want to put in multiple language, that's certainly something they would be encouraged to do.
Yes?
QUESTION: Thank you. In August and September, the National Organization on Disabilities surveyed 197 local emergency managers, and 58 percent of those folks had not yet created an informational and outreach campaign to people with disabilities in their communities. You've got a lot of demographics represented in these ads, which are fabulous, but I haven't yet seen any real emphasis to help the 54 million people with disabilities connect with that information. And I love the fact that are children are used, and there are 5 million children with disabilities and I'm just not seeing them represented thus far in the ad campaigns, while they're great and I sure hope it'll be an opportunity to use a connection with those local emergency managers and get that message that people with disabilities have some special needs that have to be addressed also.
SECRETARY RIDGE: Okay. I don't want you to interpret the absence of their presence on these campaigns as the absence of interest or work that we're doing in the Department. We have a very aggressive disabilities agenda. The first is, frankly, if we're going to be a 21st century department, we want to go out and get as many citizens with disabilities to work for the Department of Homeland Security. That's very much a part of the process we're working on.
Secondly, because so much of what we deal with in terms of securities at the borders and the like deals with a lot of citizens with disabilities, with air travel, that's a particularly sensitive and difficult area. We have worked very carefully, very closely over the past year with representative groups from the community to deal with that difficult issue because, I mean, frankly, the terrorists could even -- we know what kind of people they are, and camouflaging their evil intent behind some kind of feigned disability is something we're concerned about, so we work with them on that.
And then thirdly, we did a survey of the state and territorial strategies. Ten of the 50 states actually have written into their statewide strategies a plan of outreach, awareness and involvement. That was at their direction but one of -- and the first set of strategies. We're going to go back to the states who have not included as part of their strategy and part of their plan to say, look, you did a good job first year, you covered a lot of bases, but there are a couple gaps in dealing with the community; the disabled is one of the gaps.
MR. SACHS: We have time for two more questions.
SECRETARY RIDGE: Sir. One, two, three. We'll get them.
QUESTION: Okay. In the, especially the print ads, there are some suggestions given in terms of what children should do in terms of what should be put in the plans; however, there are different things that different children -- some go home, some stay in school -- but that may or may not agree with the local emergency plans of the school systems or local emergency management.
Was any consideration given to put something in there, please check with local emergency management or your local school board so that your plan coincides with their plan?
SECRETARY RIDGE: First of all, I do believe there is mention in some of the printed material. I think we've got a Get Ready Now brochure that suggests as they are -- do you have that handy? Okay, there is a brochure. Thanks. There are some suggestions here as to the kinds of things that a parent would want to know or understand before they sat down and developed the communication plan for the children.
Frankly, we hope we don't -- we would like to think that that would be part of the community outreach and the family outreach to find out if something happened during the course of the day, what is the local school board policy and the like. We can't be that prescriptive because it may vary. And I will tell you, it will vary depending on the kind of incident. I guess it's more important to say that it's very unlikely that an incident will occur. I mean, you can take the odds of it affecting any of our families or children, but it's the "what if." And just in case it does happen, what are your plans? And so this gives them a good idea of the kinds of things they ought to know in their own mind before they develop a plan for their family.
Ma'am, the lady in the back.
QUESTION: I'd like to know, we provide emergency preparedness planning for urban schools and minority communities, and for those communities that do not have access to cable, I'd like to know if the service announcements are available for our use in demonstrating these emergency preparedness plans, or are they only available through the website?
SECRETARY RIDGE: Well, there's going to be printed material available through multiple sources, but there are -- I guess I don't quite understand the question.
QUESTION: The actual video, the actual commercials or public service commercials.
SECRETARY RIDGE: Oh, I see. The video?
MR. SACHS: Cable is available to 97 percent of the households in the country today. Part of the reason that the spots will be on our website and also on NAB's website is so that organizations and individuals who may not subscribe to our services have the ability to get that information as well. And we would be happy, working with the Ad Council, to make available the spots to any organizations that want to provide them to their membership through some other means.
One more question in the back. Yes.
QUESTION: (Off-mike.) Mr. Secretary, can you please say a few words about the incident (inaudible), there was a man, a Moroccan man got on an airplane (inaudible) the United States. (Inaudible.)
SECRETARY RIDGE: Yeah. For those of you that don't know the context of the question, there was an individual that boarded an Air France flight who was on a no-fly list, and a no-fly list is a list, basically, of individuals designated by the intelligence and the law enforcement community that you don't want to be seated next to on an airplane and you certainly don't want them coming into the country.
We rely on domestic and international carriers to take a look at that list and deny access to the individual who is on the list. By and large, they do it, but when they don't do it, since they are also obliged to send to us the manifest of all the passengers 15 minutes after wheels are up, we can look at it, match the list against our list, to determine if there's anybody on there that shouldn't be.
In this instance, while the system is a very good system and getting better, it is not a fail-safe system yet. This individual was identified after the wheels were up. They had the plane land in Maine. The individual was taken off the plane, and the plane proceeded.
We are discussing with our friends in the European community the possibility of getting the manifest before the plane takes off, an hour before. It's easier said than done. There are diplomatic challenges. There are privacy concerns that our friend around the world have about these things. But the European Union has been very receptive to a range of ideas that Homeland Security has promoted the past year and a half, and we're going to continue to work with them to see if they can share with us the kind of information we need to make those decisions and help them make those decisions before the passengers are boarded, the plane's buttoned up, and it takes off.
So, it's a good system. It's a system we didn't have before 9/11. We're doing a fine job with it. You will hear from time to time when a couple people get through the system. We're trying to learn from those experiences and make sure it doesn't happen, and one of the best things to do is to convince our friends from around the world, if you want our air lists, we'll be happy to give them to you, and our -- before wheels are up; we'd like the same from you. At the end of the day, I think, reciprocity is going to be key. Whenever we ask our international partners to something, we have to be prepared to do the same thing.
Thank you very much. (Applause.)
Go ahead. You were very patient and I promised -- go ahead. One final question, folks. I just wanted to hear the applause again. Go ahead. (Laughter.) Ask me an easy one now.
QUESTION: Just to expound on the last gentleman's question, do you think the Europeans are being difficult in cooperating with us in any way?
SECRETARY RIDGE: No. My experience with the European Union particularly, we started off with the Container Security Initiative in one country in Rotterdam, in the Port of Rotterdam in Netherlands, and within 12 to 18 months, the entire European Union adopted it. We started off talking with the European Union about getting additional information about the people on the planes, even additional information they'd give to us 15 minutes after the plane took off. It took a long, tough negotiation, but we got it.
They're very concerned. We remind them all the time, Americans are just as concerned about their privacy as Europeans are. So whether it was the Container Security Initiative, giving us additional information, frankly, working with us on some other projects on the law enforcement side and counterterrorism side, by and large, I would tell you that the European Union and European community has been very supportive of many of the initiatives from Homeland Security and from the United States Government.
You're welcome.
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This page was last reviewed/modified on 11/22/04 00:00:00.