Emergency Response to Terrorism

Emergency Response to Terrorism Past Acts of Terrorism On September 11, 2001, America experienced an attack. Early in the morning at around 8:45 am a flight carrying 20, 000 gallons of jet fuel made its way to the northern side of the world trade centre tower hitting the 80th floor. This lead to the death of hundred plus individuals plus other were trapped on the higher floors of the world trade centre located in New York. Some few minutes later the same world trade centre building was hit with another plane which hit the 60th floor, and this led to a massive explosion that alarmed the whole state that indeed America was under attack. Immediately during the attack, the media managed to make a live broadcast of the attack so as to inform the public of the occurrence. The planners of the attack of the September 11 did it perfectly such that they ensured that there was no leak of the attack to the public. The attacker did not make use of any electronic form of communication, and thus this radio silence helped them execute their plan effectively. During the attack, the federal government experienced various communication breakdown, and this affected how the disaster was handled. An official from the 9/1 1gave a statement and said that the federal government experienced various communication breakdowns during the attack (Asaeda, 2005). The report that was given showed that the systems of communication that were put in place had failed. During the attack, those who were operating the planes tried to reach the Federal Aviation Administration via teleconferencing, but this proved difficult. The FAA did not join the conference for almost 15 minutes and even after they had joined they did not take an immediate move. The FAA personals involved in the conferencing did not have the authority to deal with the situation as the senior officials were absent. This delay in the relaying of information between the operators and the FAA contributed a lot to the attack being successful. If the official responded in advance, then an immediate solution would have been adopted to deal with the situation. Immediately the attack took place it only took a few minutes, and the firefighters were on the ground. The attack led to several individuals being hurt and may others losing their lives. The hospitals in New Jersey, New York and the neighbouring areas prepared themselves for the attack. The hospital beds were secured, and the elective surgeries that were taking place were put to a halt to make room for the victims of the attack. St Vincent who was the closest trauma centre approximately 1.6 km from the world trade centre was filled with victims of the occurrence. New York Cornell Hospital dealt with the burn patients as it is the only burn centre in Manhattan. The nurses and the doctors were not allowed to leave the hospitals because of the large number of patients that were being rushed to the hospitals (Kendra Wachtendorf, 2003). The rescue teams including the firefighters and the policemen were in place to ensure that the situation was under control. In total the rescue team mana ged to save the lives of twenty individuals who had been trapped in the building. The first responders encountered several challenges when the WTC attack took place. After the bombing of the world trade centre in 1993 radio repeaters were installed in the tower to ease communication but the firefighters were not aware that the repeaters were functioning. During the attack, there was little communication between the police department and the fire department and thus when the police were notified to evacuate the building after realising that the tower was at a risk of collapsing the firefighters were not informed. The firefighters lacked information about the collapse of the building because they were not watching the news broadcast and also because the communication centre for the police which could have used to inform them had been evacuated due to the threat that the building will collapse. The supplies for various equipment needed for rescue delayed and this thus crippled the rescue situation. The government agencies responded pretty well to the disaster. The various rescue teams and firefighting teams were in place, and they showed their bravery in the scene. They managed to save a lot of lives, and those who were injured were immediately rushed to the hospital. The hospital having been alarmed by the situation had already prepared for the disaster and had their doctors in place to take care of the situation at hand. The rescue teams experienced problems with communication, and thus the crowding of the communication network made it hard for the hospital to determine the patients are coming from the world trade centre attack (Simon Teperman, 2001). Despite the communication breakdown the hospitals still managed to take care of the patients and create more beds for the world trade centre victims. In future, the government should, therefore, ensure that they have communication backup in case of such an occurrence in future. The world trade centre sent an awakening call to the government of the United States concerning their preparation for such disasters. The fact that the tower has been a site of interest for many terrorists because of the many people it accommodates and its location as well. The government should, therefore, put in place security measures that will help curb such situations in future. The awakening call has also helped the government to improve the disaster management technique that was in place before. References Asaeda, G. (2005, September). World Trade Centre Attack. In International Congress on Disaster Medicine and Emergency Management. Yale, New Haven. Kendra, J. M., Wachtendorf, T. (2003). Elements of resilience after the world trade centre disaster: reconstituting New York Citys Emergency Operations Centre. Disasters, 27(1), 37-53. Simon, R., Teperman, S. (2001). The World Trade Center attack: lessons for disaster management. Critical Care, 5(6), 318. Emergency Response to Terrorism Emergency Response to Terrorism Decontamination On a wide scope of meaning, the word decontamination refers to the idea of making a place safe once it has been made unsafe in which ever manner. It involves getting rid of any dangerous objects like bombs or even people that make places unsafe. Cases of decontamination have been very severe as time has gone by mostly encouraged by the fact that there is high rate of technological development. High School In society, schools are one of the institutions that carry the highest number of people. They will have so many people or students who have gone to acquire knowledge and this is almost on a daily basis. Some of the reasons why a school could be attacked include; Many people will die or be affected during the attack due to the high population which is a characteristic of most schools. A terrorist always finds ways of affecting the highest population that he possibly can. The number of deaths that will be experienced in a school is quite high because the school has young children who may not know how to help themselves or how to offer proper first aid to their injured friends due to panic. This means that the number of deaths will be so high. The school has students from almost all walks of life or even at times from different countries and races. Attacking the school will mean that the different families where the children come from will be affected. A large portion of the country and state will be affected in the process. Initial considerations To make a school safe again there are so many things that I will have to look at; The nearness of the school to the city The population of the school is important so that one can prepare and approximate the number of first aid material that will be needed. The Decontamination Once we get to the school; Take all the casualties to the hospital without wasting any time so that we can save as many lifes as possible. This is the very first step to making the school safe by ensuring that the lives of those who have been affected are secured. Once that is done the facility should be cleared so that all people are kept as far away as possible from the school to avoid any more damages. Specialists in the area of bombing are then called in to survey the whole school and check if there are any more bombs. Any that is still on should be disarmed in the most careful way. The school should be then closed till its proved to be safe for any further learning. ÂÂ  Explain why your chosen initial decontamination considerations are important to this particular attack, and explain how, as a first responder, you will meet these challenges. The unfortunate aspect of the school in this case is that it is quite near to one of the big cities in the state and this poses a risk to the city. The people in the city will panic due to fear that they are next. The best way to deal with this is to use the media to inform them of what exactly happened and to ask them not to panic but to be cautious. The school is one of a high population of students and that goes without saying that I will need a lot of people in the rescue team for efficiency. Such a school may have a lot of casualties as the many students fought for safety out of their classes or the bomb may have affected many (Houghton,2016). Football stadium This is a good target for an attack because so many people love football and so he will get the attention he needs from the public. Since different people of different ages and ways of life go to watch football, no one will be able to tell who was responsible for the attack. A person can easily sneak the bomb in and out of the stadium. Initial considerations The architecture of the stadium- Some of the stadiums are quite complex in the way that they were built and this may make it even more difficult to decontaminate. It will require the help of architects especially when it comes to the issue of assessing the place for any bombs that may be hidden. The decontamination Approach scene with caution -While going to the arena, it is important to be careful as you go to the rescue because you can find that there are other bombs in the stadium that are still yet to go off and cause more death. Assess the place and find out where the bombs are located and disarm those that are still on to avoid further damage. Identify signs and indicators of CBRN incidents;-Take time to acquire patterns of things that were done deliberately to cause the bombing. This means establishing how the security was bridged all that was done for the bomb to go off It is important to know how many people lost their lives and to also identify who they were. People will come looking for their family members who might have lost their lives and so establishing the identity is important. For accountability purposes, the citizens will also expect to have a comprehensive report on the number of causalities in the bombing. Establish all the resources that will be needed for the cleaning up of any hazardous material left in the stadium. This will rely on the extent to which the bombing affected the place and the size of the stadium. The facility needs to be closed off from any further use till it is completely made safe for use. This will involve clearing of any chemicals or hazardous gases that may have been released. It can only be opened once professionals in this filed certify it as safe for use. Conclusion There are different forms of contamination in the world where bombing is one of them. This has been the cause of mass loss of life in the human history. These needs to be approached with care because any mistake made could make things worse. All the above listed steps or more should be followed with great caution so as to make places safe for use again. One fact remains; attacks will always be on places of large population (Simpson, 2014). References Houghton, B. (2016). The Changing Nature and Tactics of Terrorism. Oklahoma Politics, 25, 1-16. Fuse, A., Okumura, T., Hagiwara, J., Tanabe, T., Fukuda, R., Masuno, T., Yokota, H. (2013). New information technology tools for a medical command system for mass decontamination. Prehospital and disaster medicine, 28(03), 298-300. Simpson, E. (2014). The poor mans nuclear bomb.