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This week, at a 47-country international nuclear security conference, President Barack Obama took the opportunity to state a change in U.S. policy. The U.S. will now rank a potential nuclear attack by terrorists as the nation's top threat, not incoming missiles from Russia.

It's a scenario that U.S. intelligence professionals and those tasked to protect New York City have worried about for years: Terrorists acquire the material for an atomic bomb and detonate it in the U.S.

“The likelihood of an atomic bomb is much less because the technology for nuclear detonation is complicated and requires some special elements,” says Michael Chertoff, the former secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

He says assembling and deploying a so-called dirty bomb would be a lot easier for terrorists.

“A radiological bomb is nothing more than radioactive material imbedded in, or wrapped around a conventional explosive so that is a much easier type of device to construct and also to get the material for. So, it is not a fanciful thing to focus on," Chertoff says.

Two types of radiation detectors the NYPD uses.(Photo by Stephen Nessen)

Since 9/11, New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has committed 1,000 officers to a global counter-terrorism program that is closely integrated with the federal counter-terrorism efforts. Kelly says even though the dirty bomb is not an atomic blast, it could have major consequences.

“What it can do, besides the damage of the conventional explosive effect, would be to prevent you from going into an area, making it a hot zone for conceivably a very long time -- years perhaps, or even longer than that," Kelly says.

Former Secretary Chertoff says the federal government has a base plan to deal with a radiological emergency.

“The real challenge is to drive that plan and that planning process into the state and local governments because they have to be full partners in this," he says. "Otherwise, you wind up in a Katrina situation, where the local and the state authorities throw their hands up and all of the sudden it defaults to the federal government."

Three Mile Island nuclear plant March, 28 1979. (AFP/AFP/Getty Images)

But this is no easy task during a radiological emergency. Those situations present officials and first responders with unique challenges. Controversy still surrounds how state and federal officials responded in 1979 to the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island. Richard Thornburgh, the governor of Pennsylvania at the time, told residents:

“I am advising those who may be particularly susceptible to the effects of any radiation -- that is, pregnant women and pre-school age children -- to leave the area within a five-mile radius of the Three Mile Island facility until further notice. We have also ordered the closing of any schools within this area. I repeat that this and other contingency measures are based on my belief that an excess of caution is best."

Dr. Michael Edelstein, a social psychologist and professor at New Jersey's Ramapo College, says Thornburgh's move was prudent. Edelstein has spent the last 30 years traveling the world studying chemically and radiologically contaminated communities. “When Three Mile Island occurred, nobody, including the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, had any concept whatsoever of how to bring it back into control," he says. “There was a period of time in which neither the governor nor any spokesperson for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or the government could say anything that was particularly cogent."

Edelstien says that while officials have to worry about not panicking the public, they can't be perceived as having a hidden agenda either. He says the job for New York City officials coping with a radiological attack will be complicated by public skepticism. The Environmental Protection Agency under the Bush Administration hurt the government's credibility, Edelstein says, when it announced that air quality around the World Trade Center after September 11 was all clear.

"Trust is a major issue,” Edelstien says. “When you’re a citizen and you're put at risk in a situation like this, who are you going to look to but the government? I mean, who else is in a position to help you? But in all the research I've done in all of these years, all too often when you look to government in these situations, you are disappointed in what you find."

(Photo by Stephen Nessen)

In New York City, the public will be looking to the Office of Emergency Management. Kelly McKinney, the Deputy Commissioner for Planning and Preparedness, is responsible for helping draft OEM's response plan. He outlines the key steps OEM would have to take: "You’re setting up your incident command, you’re defining the extent of the contaminated area, you’re assisting people there, you’re conducting life safety, you’re doing decontamination operations, you’re trying to monitor the levels of radiation."

McKinney says one of the biggest challenges for city planners is having to inform the public about a specific emergency while at the same time educating people about an invisible threat they know little about.

“Radiation is a risk that is perceived very differently by the public than it is by the experts," McKinney says.

Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, a health physicist and one of the nation's top experts on radiological event response, agrees. “It’s not something that is taught in schools, and it is not something that gets a proper and objective view," she says.

Gordon-Hagerty has served in leadership posts at the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Security Council and says it's hard to inform the public about relative risk if they don't know that radiation at background levels already occurs naturally or that forms of radiation can save lives.

"More often than not, you hear people talking about the horrific effects of being exposed to radiation," she says. "Well, we live with it in our everyday lives and we are exposed to it in the countless numbers of people that have been saved from cancer treatments to other types of treatments involving other kinds of radioactive materials."

She says without a basic understanding of radiation the public will fall back on their survival instincts, and this could have dire consequences for them and their families.

“When being exposed to radiation, we have the desire, as humans, to fight or flight. Sometimes sheltering in place is the best way of minimizing exposure. So staying in the house, closing off ventilation systems, and things like that are often the most suitable way of protecting yourself," Gordon-Hagerty says.

Lieutenant David Nelson (center) leading a drill with six agencies on the Hudson River.(Photo by Stephen Nessen)

On a recent morning on the Hudson River, Lieutenant David Nelson and his crew are on a New York Police Department patrol boat heading north of the George Washington Bridge. They are working to try to make sure the region does not get hit by a radiological attack. Nelson has a packed agenda. He’s leading a regional drill to check for vessels that might be carrying radioactive material. He's also going to test some new Coast Guard radios.

Swapping radios during a drill. (Photo by Stephen Nessen)

“All right guys, thanks for everybody showing up today," he tells his team. "We are going to do a radiation choke point at Spuyten Duyvil. We are going to set up north of the Harlem River. We are going to screen any recreational small vessels coming through for radiological devices on board. Also today we are doing a communications drill."

Ironically, heavily enriched Uranium, the most dangerous atomic bomb fuel, cannot be reliably detected by existing technology. But, Nelson says, radioactive materials that can be used for a so-called dirty bomb are detectable. Still, he says getting a false hit on his equipment is pretty common.

“It does happen and you want to check out the source. Sometime you have medicinal sources -- there are legit reasons to have radiological materials. We have had instances where people have been pulled over five, six, seven times. They have the paperwork handy from the doctor's and just had a stress test or what not,” Nelson says.

Budget cuts on a state and city level are threatening to reduce the region's emergency response capability. New York Sen. Charles Schumer says more financial support from the federal government is needed in light of President Obama's change in policy.

“The federal government, unfortunately, is a big cumbersome bureaucracy," Schumer says. "So the experts have now said a dirty bomb is one of the most serious dangers we face. At the same time you have billions wasted on still fighting as if the Soviet Union were our No. 1 biggest menace."

After decades of Cold War it will take a while for the Obama administration to re-orient the entire federal security apparatus. For New Yorkers concerned about preparedness, the OEM says the best first step is to sign up with the Notify NYC emergency alert system (see below). It updates households by cell phone, land line, or e-mail about everything from water main breaks to terrorist attacks in your ZIP code.