Oklahoma Specifies Where Homeland Security Dollars to Go

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - The Oklahoma Office of Homeland Security and the office of Gov. Brad Henry have announced the allocation of $29.9 million in federal homeland security funds.

Kerry Pettingill said the money will be used to prevent a terrorist attack, reduce Oklahoma's vulnerability to an attack and prepare on how to respond to an attack.

More than half of the federal funds - $15.5 million - will go to the State Homeland Security Program.

Of that, $12 million will be dedicated to expanding a statewide communications program.

Other allocations include $5.6 million for law enforcement terrorism prevention; $5.6 million for urban area security; $2.5 million for emergency management response; $455,184 for the metropolitan medical response system and $197,434 for the Citizen Corps program.

Henry said the Office of Homeland Security had made great strides in the area of responding and recovering from a terrorist attack. He said the focus in 2005 will be on preventing an attack and reducing the state's vulnerabilities.