MILWAUKEE – The Milwaukee Health Department (MHD) is preparing for anything from food poisoning to a terrorist attack, as the city expects to see 50 thousand visitors come next summer.
At Milwaukee’s Board of Health meeting Thursday night, city health leaders shared a look into their plans for the 2024 Republican National Convention.
“This is a specific and very large-scale security event for our city and our region,” MHD Emergency Preparedness Director Dr. Nick Tomaro said. “We really are looking at an incredibly significant planning process for the security of this event, for the delegates, for our whole city.”
Tomaro said while the United States Secret Service will be acting as the lead agency, MHD will have a major role.
He explained of the 24 subcommittees created to support the large-scale event, MDH will feed into seven. This includes things like hospital preparedness, food safety, sex trafficking, or responding to a terrorist attack.
To that end, MDH will have a dedicated work group to upgrade the city’s BioWatch system for air monitoring.
“This is detecting basically bioterrorist attacks. We have a normal array that exists within our city— with an event like this that array is augmented,” Tomaro explained. “Obviously we hope it’s a very smooth event but our job is to make sure we’re ready if there are any problems.”
To manage food safety MDH will partner with the Federal Drug Administration to inspect and educate retail food establishments within a 1-mile radius of RNC venues and delegate hotels, as well as event contractors.
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