HARRISBURG – The threat of terrorism has changed in the 15 years since the 9/11 attacks, but so has the way that officials prepare for emergencies they hope will never happen.

The Sept. 11 attacks originated with a plot conceived overseas. Now, ISIS uses social media to coax radicalized people into committing crimes on its behalf, said Pennsylvania’s Director of Homeland Security Marcus Brown in an interview Thursday.

Terrorists driven by religious extremism have affected places one wouldn’t expect, Brown said, noting the workplace shooting in San Bernardino, California, last December that killed 14 people.

Closer to home, Jalil Ibn Ameer Aziz, 19, of Harrisburg, was arrested by the FBI that same month on charges that he lent support to ISIS by spreading propaganda over the internet.

But, if the nature of terrorism is changing, so is law enforcement.

State and local officials say the attacks 15 years ago transformed how they prepare for, and respond to, large emergencies.

This week, for example, Brown and his homeland security counterparts in other states joined an FBI conference call on potential threats ahead of the Sept. 11 anniversary. Days earlier, he met with an FBI analyst to discuss the anniversary.

Before 9/11 federal officials didn’t share information with each other, let alone pass it onto their state counterparts, he said.

“We would never in a million years have had that type of coordination prior to 9/11,” said Brown, whose job was created the year after 9/11.

Brown’s office now provides training and arranges planning exercises for law enforcement and emergency managers throughout the state. It held sessions prior to Pope Francis’ visit to Philadelphia last year and the Democratic National Convention in the city this past July.

Not everything has improved since 9/11. As time has elapsed, the flow of money to fight the threat of terrorism has slowed, as well.

Emergency planners say their work continues, albeit with a shift toward cooperation.

This year the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will send Pennsylvania about $43 million in grants for state and local agencies. That’s about half the amount the state got in 2004.

Planners are focused more on sharing, said Frank Jannetti, director of public safety for Mercer County, though it’s not so much a function of money as cooperation.

Mercer County is part of a regional, mutual-aid task force that includes Pittsburgh and 13 southwestern Pennsylvania counties. Much of the money available for counter-terrorism preparation is now funneled through such collaborations.

“Fifteen years ago, it would have been unheard of” for first-responders from outlying counties to go into Pittsburgh to help with large events, Janetti said, or for those in the city to travel into more rural areas.

“Now, it’s commonplace,” he said.

Cooperation and money from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security helped the task force create an urban search and rescue team, which trains to pull people from collapsed buildings, regardless of the cause of the emergency.

Jannetti also noted specially trained dogs as examples of how the community is now protected due to homeland security efforts.

The task force has 18 dogs that detect bomb-making materials. They can be used for counterterrorism efforts – or summoned to investigate threats made at local schools.

Efforts to improve communication have paid off, but they haven’t eliminated all of the challenges, said Steve Jeffery, emergency management director for Northumberland County.

“We’re more prepared to share information,” he said.

But, in other ways, the state may be less equipped to respond to large-scale emergencies than it was 15 years ago, he said.

“On Sept. 11, everyone wanted to jump on the bus and head to New York to help on the pile,” he said of the rubble of the World Trade Center towers.

Now, with many parts of the state depending on volunteers to be their first-responders for emergencies, it’s difficult to know how many people are trained to handle specialized situations that arise in the event of a terrorist attack – or how many will show up to help, he said.

“We’re working with a small amount of people,” he said.

John Finnerty covers the Pennsylvania Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach him at jfinnerty@cnhi.com or follow him @CNHIPA on Twitter