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From: Jeff Rubin 1:52 AM -0500 9/12/2001
Subject: Terrorism +/- universities
To: LABSAFETY-L@SIU.EDU
Howdy,
It's been a long day for everyone - the first of many. Given some of today's postings I'd like to pass along a few items I've been sending out
at work. I used to work in EH&S for UT
Austin, and before that I worked in public safety; I'm now an emergency management coordinator for a large fire
district outside of Portland, OR. I worked in antiterrorism for the better part of five years and decided I'd rather deal with natural hazards
in the NW. The two cities I'm responsible for reacted like most people did: a combination of anger, fear, and uncertainty.
Here's most of what I
told them during the day. I'll apologize in advance if this gets a little preachy (that won't be a first, either), and I don't claim these to be
original pearls of wisdom.
- One of the primary goals of terrorism is to make the citizenry question the ability of government to provide everyday services, including providing
safety and security. All over the country today parents pulled their kids out of school.
Not a majority, but enough to notice. We need to be able to
demonstrate that we're open for business, even if a portion of our hearts may be elsewhere.
The more we change our routine, the more the bad guys
accomplish their mission. Even if people's questions and concerns seem nonsensical - they're serious about it.
Our city governments and our fire
district received phone calls from people who just wanted to know if we were "open."
Reassurance is golden.
- Even when I started working in antiterrorism I made a point of saying that although we shouldn't completely dismiss terrorism from our minds, we
have greater concerns on a local level: I still stand by that. This was a well planned, well coordinated attack on our country - it wasn't the first,
won't be the last. We shouldn't forget that, but it shouldn't become a priority as far as local planning goes, either.
We still need to deal with
basic issues: functional EOCs, trained and confident staff, functional plans.
If you haven't already done so, it's worthwhile to review emergency
procedures and your role in them. It's also worthwhile to (re-)evaluate workplace security: not with respect to an organized attack, but maybe for
one nut job with a gun who's pissed off at a former supervisor or the city in general.
How easy is it to get past reception where you work? Does this
mean we should turn our buildings into fortresses? No: that's the price of a free society - a hackneyed but nonetheless accurate statement.
Should we
be aware of potential dangers? Absolutely.
- Don't forget personal preparedness: you should have a "disaster kit" that'll meet your basic needs for 72 hours: it should be readily accessible
at home (garage, out-building). What if you're at work? How do you contact family members?
How about a smaller version of your kit for your car?
- For universities, your biggest challenge is the nature of the place: it's designed to be open, both physically and culturally (this leads to
EH&S
challenges too, as many of us have discovered). If you can convince the executives to spend the extra $$ for security features during new
construction or renovations, great. On the other hand, how well will electronic locks and security systems work when we still have trouble
keeping people from propping open fire doors and tampering with smoke alarms?
- As far as chemical and biological weapons go, we've poured billions of $$ into a system that is inherently flawed (one of the reasons I decided to
get out of it). The overwhelming majority of acts of terrorism are performed with some combination of guns and explosives.
Making decent
agents isn't nearly as difficulty as weaponizing them (i.e, getting them into the right form to disperse and setting up the device to do the
dispersing). The most likely chemical attack will be sabotage of an industrial site or transport (how much Cl2, NH3, and flammable liquids go
through your area on a daily basis?).
- Do you want to do something? The earlier suggestion was right on: seize the moment and get your bosses to authorize functional preparedness, and
work with local emergency management and public safety (once they get over their shock at your request they can be quite helpful).
Response is NOT
the first step - it's just the step that most people focus on. Response goes a lot better with planning and training in advance (preparedness) -
taking a systems approach and implementing a standardized incident management system
(ICS, SEMS, NIIMS - all of which are really the same
thing). Both work better if we can eliminate or reduce hazards, or at least lessen their potential impact (mitigation).
Once response is over,
we move into recovery and mitigation and the cycle continues.
Soapbox, please.
Either we or our elected representatives will be making some decisions in the future relating to liberty vs. security.
Right now the latter seems
more attractive than the former, but don't forget Ben Franklin. When we alter what we do, or reduce the amount of liberty to protect ourselves,
that's a victory for the bad guys, too. Wasn't someone on the list carping about Big Brother the other day?
Does BB seem a little more attractive
now? We're not going to pay airport security personnel $50K/yr - they'll always be poorly-paid, poorly-trained, poorly-educated, short-term
employees. We may well balk at adding another hour or two to each leg of a plane trip.
There's no easy answer, but long-term decisions made in the
heat of the moment tend to be poor ones (remember: many of the current security procedures arose from the TWA flight that exploded in mid-air -
the cause hasn't been determined but it may well have been accidental).
Finally, if you'd like to do something for the victims, give blood, give money, but please don't show up or send goods unless specifically
requested. Both sites will soon go from needing assistance to being deluged.
As I write this 8 USAR teams are in or headed for NYC, four more
to DC. The National Disaster Medical System has been mobilized. There hasn't been a major disaster yet where locals haven't been deluged with
donations they neither need nor want - please don't add to that.
Dismount.
I could probably go on for a few more pages (and write out all my abbreviations and acronyms), but I'll call it quits for now.
You're
welcome to drop me a line, online or off.
Onward,
Jeff Rubin
*Note from LAS -- *The
subject header of the email, "Terrorism +/- universities,"
was appropriate. Jeff's email was 10th or 15th in a discussion
which will probably get longer. The original subject was "Protecting our universities from terrorism,"
and Jeff took it to a discussion of terrorism in univerisities, out of
universities, in general. The Labsafety-L listserv is hosted at Southern
Illinois University and is a service of the Laboratory
Safety Institute, a non-profit educational center for safety,
health, and environmental affairs in educational environments including
public and private elementary and secondary, college, university, and
postgraduate laboratory setting. Neither SIU nor LSI is in any way
responsible for Dr. Rubin's remarks, nor is Purdue University.
EOC - Emergency Operations
Center
EH&S - Environmental Health & Safety
UT Austin - University of Texas at Austin
ICS - Incident Command System
USAR - United Satates Army Reserve
SEMS - Standard Emergency Management System
NIIMS - National Interagency Incident Management System
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