Command Center

LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. - When the Air Force set up a remote air command center during Operation Desert Storm, it took 2,000 people to staff it. It took three C-141 transport planes to carry all the computers and other equipment to the Middle East. But the Air Force - specifically its Air Combat Command based at Langley Air Force Base - wants to drastically reduce the size of such centers, so they can be set up more quickly. It wants them to be staffed by 300 to 350 people, with all equipment fitting on one plane.

Lansdowne High School graduate Navy Seaman Apprentice Donald Johnston completed basic training at the command center in Great Lakes, Ill.

RAVEN ROCK, Pa. -- The nation's military chiefs, no longer fearing that a nuclear Armageddon may be close at hand, have quietly lifted the round-the-clock alert ordered almost 40 years ago at Site R, a secret U.S. command fortress buried a half-mile inside this mountain near the Maryland line.Within the site -- a sprawling, self-contained complex of five three-story office buildings, generators, reservoirs and even a barber shop and fitness center -- facilities that always stayed open in case of a surprise Soviet nuclear attack are finally closing down at night.

One afternoon in early June, Ken Mallette was in Jacksonville driving from a funeral when he got a text message about severe storms striking Maryland. One of the storms' 11 tornadoes had just ravaged nearby Fallston. In his second week as executive director of the Maryland Emergency Management Agency, Mallette arrived in Fallston in a matter of minutes rather than head back to the state's emergency command center in Reisterstown. He surveyed the damage and met with Harford County Executive David Craig.

Carroll County received its first emergency headquarters on wheels yesterday with the delivery of a new mobile command center equipped with cutting-edge technology. The $255,000 custom-built, multipurpose vehicle will be used as a central meeting place for police, fire and rescue units responding to emergencies such as hazardous material spills and hostage situations. It will also be deployed for select large-scale public events. At their orientation training yesterday, the seven Carroll County sheriff's deputies assigned to operate the vehicle got their first look at the gleaming 38-foot-long, 10-ton white-and-blue vehicle, which combines emergency communications with a tactical base.

Carroll County received its first emergency headquarters on wheels yesterday with the delivery of a new mobile command center equipped with cutting-edge technology. The $255,000 custom-built, multipurpose vehicle will be used as a central meeting place for police, fire and rescue units responding to emergencies such as hazardous material spills and hostage situations. It will also be deployed for select large-scale public events. At their orientation training yesterday, the seven Carroll County sheriff's deputies assigned to operate the vehicle got their first look at the gleaming 38-foot long, 10-ton white-and-blue vehicle, which combines emergency communications with a tactical base.

WASHINGTON - Scores of U.S. commandos, dropped by parachute and flown in by helicopter under the cover of darkness, attacked an airfield and a Taliban command center in southern Afghanistan, killing an unknown number of forces, destroying a stockpile of weapons and collecting intelligence information, officials said yesterday. The command center, a complex of buildings, included one of the homes of Taliban spiritual leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, but he was not there, officials said. A senior defense official told the Associated Press that covert ground operations were continuing in Afghanistan yesterday but declined to provide any details.

Lansdowne High School graduate Navy Seaman Apprentice Donald Johnston completed basic training at the command center in Great Lakes, Ill.

The Baltimore City public school system will operate a back-to-school "command center" at its headquarters today to Sept. 2 to respond to questions from parents and guardians about issues such as registration, immunization, school assignments, transfers and transportation. The command center, in the Alice G. Pinderhughes Administration Building at 200 E. North Ave., is in its third year of operation. During each of the first two years, the staff responded to about 1,000 calls. "With rare exception, one call to the command center puts a parent or guardian in touch with a ... staff person who can provide a quick response to a question or concern," Bonnie S. Copeland, the school system's chief executive officer, said in a statement.

WASHINGTON -- Without fanfare, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have been making gradual changes in the way they watch the world from the windowless command center inside the Pentagon.The changes are supposed to increase efficiency and improve the flow of information throughout the complex -- with fewer people. The military chiefs consider this as much a response to recent budget cuts as an adjustment to the reduced threat of nuclear war.In the "war room" -- actually a maze of secure communications rooms and conference areas that are usually off-limits to outsiders -- it was revealed during a recent visit that staffing has been cut by about 25 percent since 1990.

Thousands of people may be drinking in the Preakness infield, but police describe the scene as tame. "The goal is to have the police as out of sight as possible and as uninvolved in craziness as possible," said Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld as he walked through the infield. "We just want everybody to have a good time. It's we're not called into action, its been a great day. " Bealefeld, as much of a booster of the city as he is its 3,000-member police department, said the changes the Jockey Club has made in recent years have improved the quality of the event.

If you were fishing or boating on the Chesapeake Bay the last Sunday in July, you remember how the afternoon went from tranquility to mayhem in a matter of minutes. A powerful storm fueled by near-100 degree temperatures announced its arrival with blinding rain, vicious winds and bursts of lightning. Emergency and mayday calls filled the airwaves and sent rescue vessels out into the caldron. Natural Resources Police responded to 11 calls, ranging from capsized boats to a vessel taking on water.

Someday in the not too distant future (they don't want to spoil the surprise), Natural Resources Police officers will be able to flip a switch and watch Chesapeake Bay boat traffic from Charm City to the mouth of the Potomac River, day or night. Why do I bring this up in an outdoors column? Because the multimillion-dollar network of cameras and radar designed to protect vital sites, such as the Port of Baltimore, the Bay Bridge and the LNG docks and nuclear power plant at Calvert Cliffs, will have a second use: to police fishing, crabbing and oystering activity.

Officials advised Monday against most travel to Mexico, the center of an outbreak of swine flu suspected of killing almost 150 people there and sickening at least 50 through its spread to the United States. The acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said cases of the virus in the U.S. have been mild - none has been reported in Maryland - but warned that more serious cases could emerge. "I wouldn't rest on the fact that we have only seen cases in this country that are less severe," Dr. Richard Besser told reporters.

High-tech crime fighting came to Edgewood yesterday on the wheels of the Harford County Sheriff's Mobile Command Center, a 35-foot recreational vehicle outfitted with the latest communication equipment. The vehicle, stationed at the Edgewood Recreation and Community Center, is being used to launch a 10-day intensive policing effort in the area's most troubled neighborhoods. The Safe Zone Initiative, modeled after a successful Baltimore City program, creates a satellite precinct, available to the public 24-7.

The Army-Navy rivalry doesn't exist in the Campbell family, at least not in the way you'd think it would. After all, Reggie, the third-oldest child and youngest son, is the man of the hour for Navy - and his older brother, Tony Martin, is part of an Army unit serving in Iraq. That'll make for some good ribbing the next time they talk, right? A little chest-thumping by the younger, the hero at M&T Bank Stadium, with his two touchdowns and 227 all-purpose yards in his final Army-Navy game, and his cameo as leader of the alma mater?

WASHINGTON - Minutes after district police receive the report of a suspicious package at Washington's Union Station, a technician in a darkened room across town begins punching buttons on a control panel, trying to focus a rooftop surveillance camera on the action. The camera zooms in and out on a recent afternoon, seeking a clear shot of the hazardous materials team that at that moment is testing a white powder feared to be anthrax. It isn't. But police say if the city really were under attack, those closed-circuit real-time images could help them fight the threat.

Thousands of people may be drinking in the Preakness infield, but police describe the scene as tame. "The goal is to have the police as out of sight as possible and as uninvolved in craziness as possible," said Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld as he walked through the infield. "We just want everybody to have a good time. It's we're not called into action, its been a great day. " Bealefeld, as much of a booster of the city as he is its 3,000-member police department, said the changes the Jockey Club has made in recent years have improved the quality of the event.

The Baltimore City public school system will operate a back-to-school "command center" at its headquarters today to Sept. 2 to respond to questions from parents and guardians about issues such as registration, immunization, school assignments, transfers and transportation. The command center, in the Alice G. Pinderhughes Administration Building at 200 E. North Ave., is in its third year of operation. During each of the first two years, the staff responded to about 1,000 calls. "With rare exception, one call to the command center puts a parent or guardian in touch with a ... staff person who can provide a quick response to a question or concern," Bonnie S. Copeland, the school system's chief executive officer, said in a statement.

Carroll County received its first emergency headquarters on wheels yesterday with the delivery of a new mobile command center equipped with cutting-edge technology. The $255,000 custom-built, multipurpose vehicle will be used as a central meeting place for police, fire and rescue units responding to emergencies such as hazardous material spills and hostage situations. It will also be deployed for select large-scale public events. At their orientation training yesterday, the seven Carroll County sheriff's deputies assigned to operate the vehicle got their first look at the gleaming 38-foot-long, 10-ton white-and-blue vehicle, which combines emergency communications with a tactical base.