COLUMBIA - South Carolina has received about $43 million in federal money to respond to terrorist attacks, State Law Enforcement Division Chief Robert Stewart says.

The grants from the U.S. Homeland Security Department will go toward equipment and training for the workers who will respond first to a terror attack or a natural disaster, Stewart said Wednesday.

Nearly $30 million will be spent by the state on equipment such as outfitting a team that can rescue victims out of collapsed buildings, a first in South Carolina, Stewart said.

York County received about $161,000; Lancaster County, $91,000; and Chester County, $73,000.

The money also will go toward special response teams stationed in each county with a population of more than 100,000, decontamination equipment for all of South Carolina's 46 counties and improved communication devices.

The special equipment will be shared with all agencies across the state, Stewart said.

"We're having to do business in a new way. We have to rely on one another," Stewart said, flanked by a SLED helicopter and bomb disposal truck at the agency's headquarters in suburban Columbia.

In a separate, previously announced grant, the port in Charleston will receive $5 million for a permanent radiation detection system and an additional $5 million for other security improvements.

Also, $5 million of the federal money will be sent directly to counties to spend as they see fit. Each county will get $50,000, with the rest divided based on population, ranging from an additional $6,700 for McCormick County to an extra $255,000 for Greenville County.

Four task forces of local, state and federal officials from different regions of the state were in charge of deciding how to distribute the money.

Providing money for local authorities to spend on what they need is important, Newberry County Sheriff Lee Foster said.

"You cannot have homeland security without having hometown security," Foster said.

Newberry County will get about $75,000, and officials plan to spend the money buying a gas mask and protective suit for every deputy, paramedic and any other emergency worker who might respond first to a terrorist attack.

That way the first officers could try to contain the situation during the few hours it takes the specially equipped teams from Columbia or other places to get to Newberry County, Foster said.

Also, there is as much chance a small town or county officer may stop a terrorist strike as federal agents. After all, Foster points out, it was a rookie Murphy, N.C., police officer who caught Eric Rudolph last month after he spent five years eluding one of the largest manhunts in the nation's history.

"Chances are if we stop a weapons-of-mass-destruction attack, it will be done by a local officer making a traffic stop," Foster said.

Stewart said the grants are just the beginning. State officials will have to revise their plans on how to respond to terrorism attacks by the end of the year. They also hope to find more federal money to try to prevent attacks in the first place.

"We've come a long way in South Carolina," Stewart said. "But we still have a long way to go."