Homeland Security Challenges from a Regional Perspective: Examining the Potential Consequences of a Catastrophic Terror Incident in Washington D.C. for Surrounding States
Researcher: Brian J. Gerber, Assistant Professor, Division of Public Administration, Eberly College of Arts and Sciences
SRA: Support of a graduate research assistant and $10,000 in the form of salary and benefits, travel, equipment, books, etc. or a combination.

Project Overview: As the events surrounding Hurricane Katrina illustrate, coordinating the evacuation and relocation of large numbers of people from a disaster event represents a significant challenge for all levels of government. The difficulties encountered with Katrina very well might be even more imposing for an unanticipated terror attack involving a nuclear, radiological, or chemical weapon. If a catastrophic terrorist event of sufficient magnitude occurs in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, the immediate or first order effect will be for area authorities to implement disaster response plans, including evacuation plans to remove resident populations from the incident site. A second order effect highly likely to occur following the terror incident is the movement of a substantial number of metro area residents, in a mostly unplanned manner, away from the event location. Numerous communities in a region encompassing West Virginia, western Virginia, southeastern and central Pennsylvania, and western Maryland can be thought of as receiving communities for this second order problem, must be prepared to accommodate such unplanned, and potentially chaotic, ingress.

The roles of communities in the region may include serving as transition staging areas facilitating travel through to other destinations or serving as semi-permanent relocation areas. Demands such as these actually represent fairly significant challenges. In many cases, inadequate capacity to deal with this kind of problem or inadequate local government preparedness for accommodating this mass migration challenge is highly likely. In a major terrorist event, such as the detonation of a small nuclear device in Washington, DC, potential inadequate coordination between federal, state, and local authorities and insufficient resources will endanger the region as a whole because of the likely second order effects of the event. Limited preparedness activities and constraints on resources will also likely adversely affect the ability of communities in the region to provide assistance, both in the immediate event situation and over a longer recovery period. It is reasonable to anticipate that communities in the broader region to the west, northwest and southwest of D.C. will receive large numbers of migrants from the affected metropolitan area, with potentially disastrous gaps in capabilities and consequences.
  
This project proposes to investigate, on a pilot study scale, three fundamental questions about this important policy question:

1. What do key local government officials (e.g. emergency management officials) view as potential effects from a D.C. terror event for their communities specifically and the region generally?
   

2. What are the key vulnerabilities, social and economic, from a major terror event for communities in the region?

3. How can communities in the region engage in effective preparedness actions so as to minimize adverse effects from mass migration following a terror attack?

Population Aging and Education Spending: Evidence from Elderly Migration
Researcher: Mehmet Tosun, Bureau of Business and Economic Research, College of Business and Economics
SRA: Support of a graduate research assistant and $10,000 in the form of salary and benefits, travel, equipment, books, etc. or a combination.
  
Retirees have been increasingly targeted as a group to enhance economic development and the tax base in communities. A major factor in their rise in importance is the rapid increase in the number of retired elderly through aging of the U.S. population. The aging trend will reach a new height with the retirement of the baby boom generation. It is expected that retiree attraction will be at the forefront of state economic development initiatives in coming years. Recent discussions of aging have noted the potential generational conflict generated by the need to share society's resources between non-working elderly and the younger working population.

The study builds on the literature on generational conflict between elderly retirees and working young regarding education spending. The goal is to shed new light on the relationship between population aging and education spending by utilizing elderly migration data from the U.S. Census and taking into account the heterogeneity in elderly migrants. The findings of the study should have important implications for state and local policymakers, particularly in view of fast approaching baby boomer retirement. National Institute on Aging will be targeted as a source for future external funding.                           next page . . .