Before 911 01 USCG could not even buy fuel to patrol - on 911 I saw Coasties looking terrified holding shotguns at the gate of the station across from the towers. The majority of coasties didnt have weapons training until after 911 - that said seems like someone screwed up today!

I spent a couple of years working for a company that does crisis communication plans for various companies, schools and government agencies. They spend $1000s developing plans and then they put them in a drawer and go back to their usual inefficient little fiefdoms. How the radio channel used by the Coast Guard could be scanned by civilians and why there is no inter law enforcement communications system alert set-up reminds me that one of the largest problems in the response to Ground Zero is that the police and fire departments used different communication systems: they couldn't talk to each other.