Simulations of Attacks By Terrorists Illustrate Challenge Officials Face

[question everything]

The Wall Street Journal

SCIENCE JOURNAL
By SHARON BEGLEY

Simulations of Attacks By Terrorists Illustrate Challenge Officials Face
July 15, 2005; Page B1

When an explosion tore through the double-decker Steel Bridge in Portland, Ore., during the morning rush hour, officials knew they faced a potential calamity: The bridge carries trains and pedestrians on its lower level; Oregon Highway 99W, light rail and a streetcar up above; as well as a natural gas pipeline and fiber optics. As information poured in from television bulletins and first responders, the mayor, police chief, fire chief and others were bombarded with questions. Should they set up a command center, and if so, where? Evacuate downtown? Have police and bomb squads check other bridges? Close them pre-emptively?.. It was only a simulation, developed and run by CSI. Still, the exercise underlined what many public officials are discovering as they war-game terrorist attacks, an activity that is expected to increase in the wake of the London bombings.

(snip)

Such war games differ from drills in which police, fire and emergency medical teams practice, say, disarming a bomb. "Field exercises test plans," says Greg Hendricks, commander of the East Precinct in the Portland Police Bureau during the Portland exercise. "Simulations test people."

Many are getting failing grades. In the Portland simulation, participants debated whether to tell businesses to send workers home. When a terrorist group claimed responsibility for the bombing, the police chief dispatched squads to check other bridges, but the massive deployment left traffic unsupervised and produced gridlock. With the cellular phone network approaching overload, officials fretted that telling people not to make nonemergency calls would incite panic, so they did nothing. Soon the system, which also carried police and fire communications, crashed.

(snip)

Sometimes there is no "right" response, except in retrospect. If, after a bombing, you dispatch scores of medical, fire and police personnel to evacuate the wounded and secure the scene, many of them will die if terrorists have set a second bomb to detonate there. If you first order the bomb squad to sweep the area, the delay may doom the wounded.

(snip)

Even absent clearly right responses, "there are definitely wrong responses," says Col. Dave McIntyre, director of the Integrative Center for Homeland Security at Texas A&M University and former dean of the Naval War College. If both EMT and fire crews are sent to the site of an attack, for instance, authorities have no one to dispatch if there is a second attack. If officials don't close the first freeway exits out of a city, evacuees will all slow down to get off at the first opportunity (Col. McIntyre says everyone makes a beeline for the first motel), hopelessly snarling traffic all the way back to the city. "And if you fail to tell people within 30 minutes of an attack that their kids are safe and being sheltered in place, it's too late to tell parents not to go pick them up," says Col. McIntyre. "Then the fire chief tells you he can't get his people to the attack site because the roads are jammed.

(snip)

• You can email me at [e-mail]

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112138367794686248,00.html