Lansing- Michael Brown said he wanted to come to Lansing because of the many tornadoes and storms that affect Michigan every year, including the nasty weather that hit Michigan in May.
Brown, the under secretary of Homeland Security for Emergency Preparedness and Response, held a town hall meeting at the City of Lansing Fire Station No. 6 on Thursday afternoon to discuss how the city's first responders, or fire and police personnel, plan for emergencies.
Lansing Fire Department Chief Greg Martin said Brown spent the morning talking to firefighters and police officers about how the city handles disasters caused by weather or terrorists, and how the departments can work together.
"He listened to some of our concerns about how (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) is structured," Martin said. "There was also dialogue about more funding and where future funding is going to come from."
Lansing was the only Michigan city Brown stopped at because of time restrictions.
Brown and Martin also answered questions from the audience and talked about what would happen in Lansing if there was an emergency, and what citizens should do if the Homeland Security Advisory System is elevated to red.
"You do what your local authorities tell you to do," Brown said. "Listen to your local television and radios and take the advice of your authorities."
Martin also said if there is an emergency in Lansing, first responders would still have the same goals as usual.
"What the first responders do won't change, what will change is how much information we give them," Martin said.
"When a threat comes up, we make a decision to activate the emergency center and plan our response."
Although the audience was small, only about four or five people, 56-year-old Lansing resident Arthur Stone said he wanted to know about the state of homeland security in Michigan and he also was disappointed so few people turned out for the meeting.
"It's almost three years after the attacks and apathy has set in," Stone said. "People become so complacent and think that this can't happen here."
Others, like Fire Station No. 6's retired chaplain James Schalkhauser, said they had concerns over how sharing information between fire and police crews have been improved since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"I want to know what has been done to upgrade the communications systems," Schalkhauser said. "I'm very much interested in what homeland security has done for local cities and departments."
Brown also said there are many ways in which MSU can help in homeland defense, including working on issues related to it.
"We're asking universities to develop centers of excellence and asking them how we should deal with issues like 'What makes a terrorist,'" Brown said.
MSU has previously been involved with homeland security and has received several grants for programs.
The departments of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Packaging, and Marketing and Supply Chain Management shared a $3 million grant with other universities to address the issues of protecting the nation's food supply.
The Critical Incident Protocol, run by MSU, operates the Community Facilitation Program, which goes into communities across the country and works with businesses and city officials to coordinate their responses in case of an emergency.
The program is sponsored by the Office for Domestic Preparedness, which has given the program $1.5 million to run it, according to program coordinator Radford Jones. Jones, a former secret service agent and current academic specialist, said universities can be a valuable tool when dealing with homeland defense.
