Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll and Gov. Rick Scott | Photo: Marcus Joseph

Gov. Rick Scott conducted a four-hour meeting Wednesday with federal, state and local emergency management and public safety officials, detailing the state’s response to possible terrorist attacks and natural disasters.

The meeting, dubbed a “Homeland Security Executive Education Seminar,” was held at the Hotel Duval in Tallahassee, and was closed to the press.

Scott did speak with reporters afterward, however, talking about the need to coordinate with all levels of government in order to temper the disruption caused by a natural disaster or terrorist attack.

“Today this exercise was to have a discussion about things like terrorist attacks, how we would work together in regard to a terrorist attack. We feel comfortable that our state is ready to deal with those things, and we always have to remember that it impacts individuals’ lives,” Scott said.

In the aftermath and panic of the 9/11 attacks, Florida was identified as a key state where the 9/11 "pilots" were trained; and the Kennedy Space Center, Walt Disney World and other theme parks and resorts in Florida were seen as prime targets for al-Qaida and other Muslim fundamentalist terrorists.

Since then, Florida has only had to contend with hurricanes and, most recently, wildfires. An extended dry season kept more than 400 fires burning last month, taking the lives of two state Division of Forestry firefighters, but late rains have cut the fires down to 73 in the state.

“As you know, our state has been -- we’ve had plenty of hurricanes in our state and we’ve built a great team to deal with that, and already this year we’ve dealt with wildfires, and we did a great job dealing with those wildfires,” Scott said.

The former health-care executive recalled the displacement of his employees after Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and said providing the necessary services to citizens in the event of a disaster is his top priority.

“I went through Hurricane Andrew in 1992. I had 500 employees without homes. Anything, whether it’s a hurricane, whether it’s a wildfire, whether it’s a terrorist attack, whether it’s a mass migration, whether it's anything like that, it’s people and we’ve got to take care of each one of those. First off, we’ve got to hope these things never happen; but if they do, we’ve got to prevent the number of lives that are impacted after the event happens,” Scott said.

Besides the obvious emotional, physical and psychological impact of a terrorist attack, Scott acknowledged the potential devastating long-term economic impacts an attack could have on Florida’s fragile, tourism-dependent economy.

“Often that’s what long-term is a bigger impact -- and also get people back to work. If we ever had an event such as a terrorist attack, our state is tied to tourism and it’ll impact a lot of people’s lives,” Scott said.

Reach Gray Rohrer at grohrer@sunshinestatenews.com or at (850) 759-3152.