Public Intelligence

Urban Shield is a continuous, 48-hour Full Scale Multi-Disciplinary Homeland Security/Disaster Preparedness Exercise hosted by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, with the support of the Bay Area Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI), and more than 150 local, state, federal, international and private sector partners.

This report examines the UASI grant program, including a detailed review of 15 cities that have received funding through the program. It is intended to assess whether spending on DHS antiterrorism grants like UASI have made us safer, and whether the taxpayer dollars that have been spent on these programs have yielded an adequate return on investment in terms of improved security.

Created in 2003 in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States by al-Qaeda, the Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) is the only federal homeland security grant program that requires regional governance, strategic planning and investing involving all disciplines – law enforcement, fire service, public health and medical, public works, critical infrastructure owners and operators, and emergency management – in order to acquire the necessary plans, equipment, training and exercises to prevent, protect against, respond to and recover from threats and acts of terrorism and other major hazards. From FY 2003 to FY 2011, approximately $6.5 billion has been appropriated for this program.

DHS defines risk by three principal variables: threat, or the likelihood of a type of attack that might be attempted, vulnerability, or the likelihood that an attacker would succeed with a particular attack type, and consequence, or the potential impact of a particular attack. The risk model used to allocate HSGP funds includes both asset-based and geographically-based terrorist risk calculations. DHS combines these complementary risk calculations to produce an estimate of the relative risk of terrorism faced by a given area.

DHS defines risk by three principal variables: threat, or the likelihood of a type of attack that might be attempted, vulnerability, or the likelihood that an attacker would succeed with a particular attack type, and consequence, or the potential impact of a particular attack. The risk model used to allocate HSGP funds includes both asset-based and geographically-based terrorist risk calculations. DHS combines these complementary risk calculations to produce an estimate of the relative risk of terrorism faced by a given area.