Mother Earth may be responsible for the biggest disasters facing our world, but those due to human causes are not far behind. If we look at things like nuclear war and climate change, we can see how man-made catastrophes, especially when combined with environmental forces, might do us in much sooner. Man-made disasters add to our fear levels because unlike many natural ones, they are unpredictable and often accompany volatile social changes and geopolitical strife. Man-made disasters may be smaller in size but more powerful and horrifying in purpose and implication. Or they remind us of our capacity to make mistakes and screw up in ways that affect thousands of other people, such as a faulty mechanical inspection that might down a plane full of passengers or an overlooked valve leak that might lead to a massive gas explosion.
Humans make mistakes, and that is hard enough to deal with when they cause fatalities and injuries, but when humans commit mass acts of violence and terrorism, random or otherwise, we are rendered helpless and hopeless. Then we are forced to make sense of what happened emotionally as well as physically, and the scars these events leave behind often run deep. Global disasters take the greatest toll, leaving us feeling as if the whole world is an unsafe place.
But, just as with natural disasters, we can find ways to mitigate the threats and do our best to survive what is survivable. We can find ways to take back our power over the unknown and unplanned. It all comes down to knowing what the threats we face are, how they might play out if they actually happen, and how best to prepare for and respond to them.
According to the Disasterium website, man-made disasters are broken down into categories that include:
•Technological hazards: cyberterrorism, electromagnetic pulse, hacking, blackouts, grid outages
•Sociological hazards: terrorism, war, active shooter events, mass crime sprees
•Transportation hazards: air, roadway, railway, space, and boat disasters
Human-caused disasters are often the results of human error, human intent, or the failure of systems, including our economic infrastructure. Nuclear bombs, dirty bombs, terrorist explosions, arson fires, and plane crashes often get the most media coverage because of the fear factors involved, but we have also experienced devastating oil spills, bridge collapses, gas explosions, and the sinking of major cruise ships. Loss of life can vary from the single digits to the thousands, and often it is poorer regions and communities that pay a higher toll, simply because more expensive areas have easier and faster access to emergency response.
The frightening thing about man-made disasters is that, in the vast majority of cases, they are totally unpredictable. In the case of terrorism, they can happen anywhere at any time. At least we have some warning of a tornado outbreak or an impending volcanic eruption. However, man-made disasters can be prevented if prior actions are taken to cut down the potential for human error and provide more security in the case of acts of human intent. A solid infrastructure is a plus, but many nations of the earth, including the wealthy United States, often don’t learn about weaknesses in their infrastructures until something catastrophic tests them and shows the specific points of failure. Even terrorist attacks can reveal massive holes in the security of buildings and locations, just as a cyberattack can point out the weakness of a website’s protective measures.
Man-made disasters take a large toll not only on human life, but on the environment, and can often cause irreversible damage to ecosystems. The fact that we humans are building more of our homes in specific areas, such as coastal urban centers, adds to the devastation when even a moderate event takes place. If the population is dense enough, more people and structures will be affected adversely.
Even natural disasters are made worse by human actions and behaviors. Wildfires ravage homes that are built in rural areas dense with dry brush. Thick fog banks along heavily populated coastlines cause more auto crashes than along rural roads. A dirty bomb going off in an airport is much more potent than one going off in a rural grain tower.
The economic impact is often worse with man-made disasters, especially in the case of massive oil spills, toxic hazard disasters, and nuclear-related events. War is probably the biggest man-made disaster we face in terms of loss of life, environmental impact, and economic breakdown, but even a nuclear bomb or nuclear EMP set off in the atmosphere can cause billions of dollars of damage.
In 2004, the Indian Ocean earthquake and the tsunami that followed killed over 230,000 people and caused about $15 billion in damage. Yet the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which took the lives of eleven people, cost six times that much for cleanup and recovery. The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, which resulted when the Valdez collided with the Bligh Reef, cost about $2.5 billion, with additional billions of dollars in damage and recovery costs. Often, with these oil spills, the environmental damage is irreversible. The Valdez spill alone put over 11 million gallons (41.6 million liters) of oil into the ocean, resulting in the deaths of over 250,000 birds and other wildlife near the Prince William Sound in Alaska.
TOP MAN-MADE DISASTERS
The top man-made disasters run the gamut from thick fog to oil fires to nuclear power plant explosions. While some disasters cost more in lives, others rack up massive bills for damage. In many cases, these disasters were preventable, which makes them even greater tragedies. In no particular order, some of the biggest include:
•SS Grandcamp disaster: Over 575 people lost their lives in April of 1947 when the SS Grandcamp exploded at dock in Texas City, Texas. The ship was filled with ammonium nitrate. When it exploded, it destroyed the entire fire department of the town of Texas City, who happened to have been fighting a fire in the ship’s cargo hold. Hundreds of spectators watching along the docks were also killed. Fire spread to a nearby Monsanto chemical plant and even an oil pipeline, which added fuel to the fire and destroyed the city. Then another ship exploded hours later and finished off what was left of the town, burning hundreds of homes and structures and injuring thousands of people. This event resulted in major lawsuits and attempts to regulate laws governing the transport of toxic materials.
One of the worst nuclear reactor disasters of all time occurred in Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986, when it was still part of the U.S.S.R. The city had to be evacuated and will not be habitable by people for at least two centuries.
•The Great Smog of ’52: In 1952, London was slammed with some of the heaviest combined pollution and fog in the city’s history. The weather was cold, and when citizens began using fireplaces, the added smoke from burning coal created a black cloud filled with various chemicals such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide combined with auto exhaust and exhaust from nearby power plants. The toxic cloud was so thick that it enveloped the city, and over 12,000 people were killed in what became the worst air pollution crisis in European history.
•Love Canal: The Love Canal near Niagara Falls, New York, was discovered to have been sitting atop over 21,000 tons (19,051 metric tons) of industrial toxic waste that began to seep into residents’ yards, leading to an epidemic of miscarriages and birth defects and a massive cleanup effort. In 1978 the seventy-acre area became one of the largest environmental disasters in history and was still oozing toxins as of 2013, according to “Love Canal Still Oozing Poison 35 Years Later,” a November 2, 2013, article in the New York Post that reported a lawsuit by new residents in the same neighborhood.
•Three Mile Island: In 1979, Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant experienced a partial core meltdown at its Unit 2, causing livestock deaths, birth defects, miscarriages, and premature births and prompting an evacuation within a five-mile (eight-kilometer) radius. This would go down as the worst nuclear disaster in U.S. history and begin the downslide of public faith in the use of nuclear power.
•Flight 191 crash: One of the worst disasters in U.S. history, the ill-fated American Airlines Flight 191 crashed shortly after takeoff in May of 1979. Heading out of Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, the McDonnell Douglas CD-10 crashed when the left engine broke off, sending the plane down in an open field. All 258 passengers, 13 crew, and 2 ground workers were killed. The Federal Aviation Administration found that faulty ground maintenance was the cause.
•Kansas City collapse: In July of 1981, 114 people lost their lives in Kansas City, Missouri, when a fourth-floor skywalk of the Hyatt Regency Hotel collapsed from the weight of over a thousand people standing and dancing on the bridge. Among the deaths were people attending a tea dance in the concourse area below. The cause was determined to be insufficient load capacity, and no criminal charges were filed against the walkway designers.
•Bhopal gas leak: In December of 1984, the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, exposed over half a million people to leaks of deadly toxins such as methyl isocyanate gas. Over 15,000 died, and an additional 20,000 are said to have died later from aftereffects of the poison gas.
•Chernobyl: The “big one” of man-made disasters, the 1986 meltdown of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Soviet Ukraine was a catastrophe in every sense of the word. The meltdown released over 400 times more radioactive materials into the atmosphere than the Hiroshima bomb and caused thousands of fatal cancers in those near the area as well as countless thousands of babies born with birth defects. The event took place in 1986, and experts say the area will not be safe for any human activity for 200 years.
•Kuwait oil fires: The honor of the largest oil spill in history goes to the 1991 oil fires that occurred after the invasion of that year in Kuwait, when Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi army blew up the oil wells. Six hundred wells were set ablaze and burned for over seven months, creating a major environmental hazard.
•Mississippi River bridge collapse: Imagine being in rush hour traffic on an eight-lane bridge over a river when a design flaw in the forty-year-old bridge causes a collapse. It’s hard to imagine, but it happened in August of 2007 when the busy bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota, collapsed, killing 13 and injuring 145. This disaster served as a catalyst for other states to increase bridge structural safety.
The above is just a sampling of the various man-made disasters that happen all over the world. We hear about them on the news and thank our lucky stars we were not there at the time and are enraged when we learn something as simple as faulty inspections were to blame for deaths and injuries. But these are the types of events that can happen to any one of us, anywhere at any time.
AIR DISASTERS
One of the most horrifying types of disasters occurs high in the air, where we already feel vulnerable. Although more people die on highways and byways all over the world because of auto accidents and crashes, the idea of being on a plane thousands of feet above the ground terrifies us, yet we continue to use this mode of transport nonetheless. While millions of flights take place each year without incident, there are those fateful flights that result in tragedy. Whether the cause is pilot error, maintenance error, or something entirely natural, such as heavy storms and lightning strikes or blocked engines due to a flock of birds, the death tolls are always high.
Pan Am Flight 103 was destroyed by a terrorist in 1988. The plane crashed in Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 243 aboard.
•1977—KLM and Pan Am Boeing 747 jumbo jets collide over the coast of West Africa, killing 583. Thick fog on the runway is to blame.
•1985—Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashes in a remote area of Japan, killing 524 of the 528 on board after an explosive decompression.
•1988—As the result of a terrorist plot, Pan Am Flight 103 exploded into three sections after taking off from Heathrow Airport in London; 243 died. Another 11 people died in Lockerbie, Scotland, when the three sections came down and a fireball burned several homes.
•1996—TWA Flight 800 exploded near Long Island, killing 230 people aboard. The cause was later determined to be a short circuit that caused a fuel tank explosion.
•1999—Egypt Air Flight 990, en route from L.A. to Cairo, crashed in the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 217 on board. The plane was said to have been crashed intentionally by the pilot, who was Egyptian, but the Egyptian Civil Aviation Agency determined that it was mechanical failure.
•2001—After the terrorist attacks of 2001, American Airlines Flight 587 crashed in Queens, New York, killing all 260 on board and five people on the ground. The cause was determined to be an overused rudder mechanism.
•2014—Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 vanished within an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur on its way to Beijing. It vanished somewhere over the Indian Ocean and has not been found since. It was carrying 239 people on board. No bodies or debris have been found.
•2014—Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 was carrying 298 when it was shot down in the eastern Ukraine by a possible surface-to-air missile launched by Russian-backed separatists.
•2015—Metrojet Flight 9268 exploded over the Sinai desert, killing all 224 on board, in a terrorist act claimed by the Islamic State.
These major air disasters all involved either mechanical issues or terrorist acts. Sadly, the disasters continue as both faulty inspections and pilot error as well as terrorist activity persist. These are not predictable, but in many ways they are preventable.
DAMS
Most of us don’t think too much about dam failure unless we happen to live near a dam, yet it is the cause of major flooding and loss of both life and property, and with the increasing precipitation in many areas of the world, combined with growing populations nearby, dam failures and levee breaches are a frightening prospect.
Dam failures and levee breaches can have totally natural causes, such as heavy rains, earthquakes, and long-lasting storms, but sadly they can also be the result of poor design and maintenance practices. In the United States alone, there are over 80,000 dams, with one third considered high risk according to the National Inventory of Dams.
Dams are artificial barriers that impound massive amounts of water for storage and flow control. They can fail at any time with little warning as the result of overtopping due to heavy rains that exceed dam capacity, structural failure, settling and cracking of the concrete, earthquakes, piping and erosion within the embankments, inadequate maintenance, and even terrorist plots.
In May of 1889, the South Fork Dam near South Fork, Pennsylvania, failed due to heavy rains. The breach released over 20 million tons (18.14 metric tons) of water into communities below, killing over 2,200 people and destroying entire communities. Those who didn’t perish in the initial floodwaters were left to float on debris and huddle in attics of flooded homes until help could arrive. The event would go down in history as the Johnstown Flood and South Fork Dam failure and was the first disaster that the American Red Cross, under the leadership of Clara Barton, was established to respond to and assist with.
A Sticky Situation
January 15, 1919, has gone down in history as the Great Molasses Flood. In Boston’s North End, a large storage tank of molasses at the Purity Distillery Company collapsed, sending a molasses tidal wave traveling at approximately 35 miles per hour (56 kph) through the neighboring streets. Twenty-one people died, and 150 more were injured. Witnesses reported a loud roar and rumble, and the ground shook as the fifty-foot tank released over 2.3 million gallons (8.706 million liters) of molasses into the streets. Buildings were swept off their foundations, a railcar was overturned on the tracks, trucks were tossed in the air, and horses and other animals were killed in its path, unable to get out of the sticky, thick mess.
The cause was determined to be a combination of poor tank construction, insufficient testing, and rising internal pressure due to fermentation. The origin point of the stress to the tank was a manhole cover near the base of the cylindrical tank, where pressure was highest.
Cleanup went on for weeks in the immediately affected zone and months overall, with over 300 people pitching in to remove the stickiness from the Greater Boston suburb.
One of the more bizarre disasters in the history books is the 1919 molasses flood in Boston, Massachusetts.
More recent dam failures include the 1976 Teton Dam failure on Idaho’s Teton River, which caused over one billion dollars in damage and killed 11 people. In 1977, the Kelly Barnes Dam in Georgia killed 39 people when it failed. With increasing rainfall being reported in more areas of the world, including the United States, filling levees and dams beyond their capacity, we are sure to see more of these catastrophic failures and the resulting floods.
If you live near a dam or downstream from one, you can contact your state or counter-emergency management agency or visit the National Inventory of Dams and the Association of State Dam Safety to find out if your dam is a high-hazard site. If there is a dam failure, follow all evacuation orders, and get out of the path of the water as soon as you can. Dams are structures we often just don’t think about and take for granted, but they are part of the new generation of threats we face as our climate changes and storms and rainfall amounts rise each season.
According to the Insurance Information Institute, in the year 2016 alone, there were (globally) 136 man-made disasters, 4,014 deaths, and approximately $7,797,000 in insured losses. Of these disasters, which had to qualify as catastrophes in terms of loss of life and insured loss amounts, 36 were maritime disasters that included overturned ferries and ships carrying immigrants, 11 were air disasters (including space-related), 11 were rail disasters, 8 were mining accidents, 3 were bridge/building collapses, and 17 involved terrorism and social unrest. This is just a glimpse into one year and, again, only disasters with insurable losses reported.
The transportation-related disasters alone caused 2,298 deaths and over $3 billion in insured losses. Marine accidents included the horrific boat crashes near Greece and Libya, resulting in over 600 migrant deaths.
Man-made disasters could fill an entire book, but the point to be taken from these events is that they are in many cases caused by human acts and preventable. As we become more focused on regulating industries and enforcing safety codes, we still may have the occasional disastrous plane crashes, gas explosions, and dam failures, but fewer of them. Until then, it behooves us all to learn what to do before, during, and after in order to survive.
NUCLEAR DISASTER
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster of 2011 is considered the most significant nuclear disaster since Russia’s Chernobyl event in 1986. It is also, after Chernobyl, the second nuclear disaster in history to be rated a 7 on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES). Though Fukushima did not result in direct deaths, it is still rated as high as Chernobyl for the potential aftereffects of the widespread radiation.
The purpose of the INES, which was created by the International Atomic Energy Agency, is to communicate to the public the danger levels of a nuclear incident or accident in terms of the ionized radiation threat. As a safety significance scale, the INES is designed to convey the critical, or not so critical, nature of an event in the same way the Richter scale signifies the size of an earthquake.
The scale is divided into two sections with seven different levels:
0—A Deviation, but with no safety significance
1—An Anomaly
2—An Incident
3—A Serious Incident
4—An Accident with Local Consequences
5—An Accident with Wider Consequences
6—A Serious Accident
7—A Major Accident
Levels zero through three are called incidents, with the higher levels being the more deadly accidents. Each level is ten times greater an event than the level before it and takes into account people and the environment, radiological barriers and control, and defense in depth. Any extremely minor event with no safety significance is rated 0. Events that don’t have relevance in terms of radiation or nuclear safety at all are not even rated.
Events rated a 7 will be those that require countermeasures to protect human and other life and the environment, even if the effects haven’t actually occurred.
The next time a nuclear event occurs, the media will give the rating level, which then indicates what precautions, evacuations, and other actions are necessary.
TERRORISM AND ACTS OF VIOLENCE
As the world around us becomes an increasingly violent place, new threats of terrorism, even on domestic soil, loom. Add to that the threat of war, mass shootings, and cyber attacks, and it is easy to become paranoid. While it is important to remember that we only hear about the bad news in the media and that most of our days go by without incident, it helps to be aware, alert, and prepared.
Before we can do that, we need to look at the potential threats we face. Here in the United States, the rise of mass shootings and domestic terrorism, including cyberattacks, is concerning, to say the least. As the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and other government agencies scramble to find new ways to stop terrorist acts in their tracks or respond to those that do happen, we must do our part to educate ourselves about what we might be facing not just abroad, but right here at home. No longer are all the headlines about countries thousands of miles away. These horrors happen everywhere, and they can happen here at any time and in any place.
Terrorism is an act of indiscriminate violence used as a tactic and a strategy to avenge or punish. It is also used to oppress a group of people by scaring them into submission and to suppress dissent. The idea behind any terrorist act is to create fear and often to achieve a specific political, social, religious, or cultural goal at the same time. Terrorist acts, by their very nature, cause extreme fear because we never know where or when they will occur, and it makes us afraid to leave our homes and live our lives in freedom. This is often exactly what terrorists, whether foreign or domestic, want. They want to control others, and their main weapon of choice is terror.
Terrorism is not just an overseas threat anymore. Domestic terrorist acts on U.S. soil happen all the time, often at the hands of white supremacist groups, antigovernment militias, and religious extremist groups (Christian and Islamic). Sometimes the terrorist is a lone wolf acting on their own to create fear and panic. But usually it is a small cell or group that has a particular agenda they believe is achievable by killing or instilling terror in the hearts of others. Domestic terrorists can be teenagers shooting up schools with guns or a man walking into a grocery store and opening fire. Often domestic terrorism involves people who are mentally unstable, have access to vast amounts of weapons (guns and explosives), and have not committed a previous crime and therefore are not on the radar of the FBI.
Terrorists use violence to achieve political, religious, or social goals. By attacking unpredictably, they create fear in populations, and fear keeps them from being free.
When it comes to emergency situations, we know from watching headline news that a bombing or attack can occur anywhere at any time. As much as the government agencies fighting terrorism try to squash it before it happens, it is impossible to prevent all terrorist acts, especially those that are inflicted by homegrown terrorist groups and organizations.
Terrorist acts can best be classified as political, social, cultural, religious, psychological, and ideological. They may involve actual bombings, mass shootings, the intentional breakdown of infrastructure and technology (cyberterrorism), and out-and-out warfare in more extreme cases. A school shooting is just as much a terrorist act as a bomb set off in an airport by a religious extremist group. Terror is terror, no matter what group it is inflicted upon.
It is impossible to ask people to avoid public places that can be terrorist targets, such as airports, the venues of large sporting events and concerts, subways, shopping malls, and anywhere else large groups of people gather. Even smaller locations such as a grocery store or a popular restaurant can be a target. Schools seem to be a target of choice for many shooters/terrorists, as are movie theaters. In other words, it pays to be vigilant no matter where you go nowadays and to be aware of your surroundings at all times.
Security measures since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, which caused close to 3,000 fatalities and over 8,700 injuries, have certainly increased public awareness of the possibilities as well as measures to protect the public. But these events will continue.
The number-one choice of terrorists, whether domestic or foreign, is explosive devices. Many bombs are improvised and easy to make with materials that are commonly found. Others are more intricate, such as the suitcase nuclear “dirty bombs.” Bombs can be small, yet pack an incredible amount of deadly power. Notable terrorist bombings on U.S. soil include:
1916—Suitcase bomb—10 dead and 44 injured when a bomb in a suitcase exploded during a Preparedness Day Parade in San Francisco, California
1920—Wall Street bombing—40 dead and hundreds injured when alleged anarchists exploded a bomb on the busy New York street
1975—New York City bombing—11 dead and 75 injured when a bomb exploded in a TWA terminal locker at La Guardia Airport.
1975—Fraunces Tavern bombing—4 dead and 63 injured in the bombing of the historic tavern in New York City
1986—Hostage situation and bombing—2 dead and 79 injured during a hostage situation at an elementary school in Cokeville, Wyoming, that resulted in a bomb exploding
1993—World Trade Center bombing—6 dead and over 1,000 injured when a bomb exploded in a van in the basement garage
1995—Oklahoma City bombing—169 dead and 675 injured from a truck bomb
1996—Olympic bombing—2 dead and 110 injured when a pipe bomb exploded during a night concert in a park at the Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia
2013—Boston Marathon bombing—3 killed and hundreds injured by two bombs thrown during the Marathon
Between 1978 and 1995, the Unabomber, otherwise known as Theodore Kaczynski, killed 3 people and injured 23 others on a nationwide bombing spree.
In many war-torn and terrorist-ridden countries of the world, bombings are a daily occurrence. Travel to such countries is often restricted, but it still behooves the traveler to beware of the dangers. On U.S. soil, many of the bombings are smaller in scope but still a clear and present danger.
Bombs are not the only weapon of choice we need to be aware of. Crashing planes into buildings has occurred more than just on the fateful day of September 11, 2001. Two hundred seventeen people lost their lives in an intentional crash of an Egypt Air flight over the Atlantic Ocean in 1999. In the past, planes were being hijacked left and right, and, as in the November 1958 Cubana Airlines crash after a plane was hijacked from Miami, some ended in disaster. Today we find many news reports of cars, trucks, and buses being driven into large crowds, killing dozens and injuring hundreds. As this book was being written—in fact, as this section was being written—a car drove into a crowd of people in Virginia protesting a White Nationalist march, killing one and injuring dozens. A few weeks later, a white van drove into a crowd in a pedestrian zone in the historic Las Ramblas section of Barcelona, Spain, and killed 13, injuring over 50 other tourists and residents, before being caught by police.
Biological terrorism and warfare is a huge concern as terrorists learn ways to weaponize deadly viral and bacterial agents. Biological agents include organisms and toxins that can kill or incapacitate people. When the agents are airborne, they are an extreme danger to heavily populated areas, where they can spread like wildfire.
There are three types of biological agents used in terrorist acts: viruses, bacteria, and toxins. Methods of dispersion include spraying them into the air, contaminating water and food systems, person-to-person contact, and infecting animals that then infect humans. The real danger of these attacks centers on the invisibility of the agents. By the time we are aware there has been an attack, the virus, bacteria, or toxin can spread exponentially, and often the first sign is a large wave of sick people showing up at urgent care centers and hospital emergency rooms.
Perhaps the most famous biological attack occurred in Japan in March of 1995 when an attack using the poisonous nerve gas Sarin occurred on a Tokyo subway. The terrorist group behind the Sarin attack was the cult called Aum Shinrikyo, a Japanese doomsday cult founded by a man named Shoko Asahara in 1984. The same group had been responsible for a smaller Sarin attack a year earlier. The followers believed in a doomsday prophecy of Asahara’s that suggested instigating a third world war and bringing about a nuclear Armageddon. Twelve people died and over 4,000 were injured because of the ideology of a crazed cult combined with access to a deadly toxin. It can and will happen again so long as there are extremist groups and individuals willing to carry out such acts.
Demonstrators protest against the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult, which was responsible for the 1995 Sarin attacks on a Tokyo subway.
After the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, anthrax-laced letters were sent to numerous media outlets, congresspeople, and government officials. In September of 1984, followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in Oregon poisoned restaurants in the area with salmonella, resulting in over 751 ill. In April of 2015, Amanda Vicinanzo, senior editor for Homeland Security Today, wrote in “Biological Terrorist Attack on US an ‘Urgent and Serious Threat’” that a bioattack on U.S. soil could, in the words of Martha McSally (R-AZ), “cause illness and even kill hundreds of thousands of people, overwhelm our public health capabilities, and create significant economic, societal and political consequences.” McSally is the subcommittee chairman of the House Committee on Emergency Preparedness. Though its main concerns are attacks courtesy of foreign terrorist groups such as ISIL and other jihadists, a threat from homegrown domestic terrorists and lone wolf “rogues” exists as well.
In an October 2014 article titled “Could US Handle Biological Attack” for The Hill, reporter Kristina Wong looked at the threat of a weaponized Ebola or other extremely virulent virus being unleashed on the country and how the virus itself is only the beginning of the problems we face: “While experts say Ebola would not make the most effective biological weapon, the problems seen in the response to the virus—from confusion over treatment protocols to a shortage of specialized medical facilities and trained workers—would be magnified if a biological agent were unleashed in the United States.” This was written shortly after the United States had been dealing with the threat of three cases of Ebola and potential breakouts on our own soil.
It is very disconcerting to imagine a weaponized virus or other toxin released into the public, but even more frightening is the prospect that we may lack the proper responses to protect citizens, including ourselves, from an epidemic, or worse, a pandemic.
MASS SHOOTINGS
The biggest terrorist threat we face in the United States is the proliferation of mass shootings. Guns are the new bombs and appear to be the chosen weapon for domestic terrorists, lone wolves, and mentally unstable individuals with easy access to weapons, whether legal or illegal.
A mass shooting usually involves more than one or two victims and is often the work of someone with a distinct agenda. Often there are two or three shooters, but the vast majority of cases involve one shooter. According to “The Math of Mass Shootings,” an article by Bonnie Berkowitz, Lazaro Gamio, Denise Lu, Kevin Uhrmacher, and Todd Lindeman for the June 6, 2017, Washington Post, mass shooting events don’t even take into account gang activity, shootings that begin as another crime, such as a robbery, or family killings. We are looking at a pandemic, and it appears to be spreading.
Also called “active shooter incidents,” many of these result in the deaths not only of victims, but of the shooters as well. If the shooters don’t kill themselves, law enforcement usually will. Even though the majority of gun deaths in the United States continue to be suicides or one-on-one shootings, we still must be alert to the possibility that we might experience an active shooting while shopping at the local mall, attending a major concert or event, or even doing something as simple as visiting a friend at a hospital. Such incidents, like biological attacks, can happen anytime, anyplace, and anywhere and are totally unpredictable.
Everytown for Gun Safety, an advocacy group, reported some grim statistics in an NPR June 5, 2017, report titled “Most Mass Shootings Are Smaller, Domestic Tragedies.”
The report states that between 2009 and 2016:
•70% of mass shooting victims were killed during the actual incident.
•A majority of mass shootings with fewer than ten victims involve domestic violence.
•Almost a fourth of fatalities are children.
•96% of suspects had not been subject to prior FBI terrorism investigations.
•The average shooter age is 34.5.
•83% of shooters are male.
•52% were not prohibited from possessing firearms.
•42% were suicides.
Red flags and warning signs are possible, such as domestic abuse and violence, prior firearm offenses, mental imbalances and threats, other criminal offenses, substance abuse, and animal abuse. But often these red flags are overlooked. In the case of larger-scale mass shootings, even the FBI has difficulty pinpointing shooters ahead of time, even when they have been stockpiling weapons for months. In many cases, there is nothing to pinpoint, as with a drifter who opened fire on a Stockton, California, elementary school in January of 1989, killing five children and wounding thirty others before he killed himself. The shooter was said to have had a history of prior criminal offenses, mental illness, and drug abuse, yet he was able to buy the AK-47 and semiautomatic handgun he used in the shooting legally at the time in Oregon and California.
Despite bans on assault weapons, and security and background checks, too many of these shooters manage to get guns and use them on innocent victims. While the vast majority of gun owners are responsible and buy their guns legally, the problem persists that, at any given moment in time, the person standing next to you could open fire. Whether as an act of terror, a cry for help, or because of an extreme ideology or mental illness, the results are the same.
In the next chapters we will learn the best ways to respond in an active shooter situation, but for now we will look at some of the more recent deadliest shootings in U.S. history. Again, these don’t include gang activity and normal criminal activity or shootings involving fewer than three or four victims.
•San Ysidro McDonald’s, San Diego, California: July 18, 1984: A 41-year-old man opened fire in a border town McDonald’s south of San Diego and killed 21 before he was killed by police.
•Luby’s, Killeen, Texas, October 16, 1991: A 35-year-old man named George Hennard killed 23 people before killing himself in a Texas cafeteria.
•Columbine, Colorado, April 20, 1999: Two high school students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, killed 13 people and wounded 24 others at Columbine High School before they killed themselves.
•Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, April 16, 2007: A 23-year-old man named Seung-Hui Cho opened fire on the campus and killed 32, injuring 17 others. Then he killed himself.
•Fort Hood, Fort Hood, Texas, November 5, 2009: An Army psychiatrist named Major Nidal Malik Hasan used two handguns to kill 13 people and injure 30 others at the U.S. Army’s Fort Hood Readiness Center. He was captured and sentenced to death in 2013.
•Aurora Theater, Aurora, Colorado, July 20, 2012: Twenty-five-year-old James Holmes walked into a midnight screening of The Dark Knight at the Aurora Theater, opened fire, and killed 12 people. Over 70 were injured. Holmes was arrested nearby shortly after the attack.
•Sandy Hook, Newtown, Connecticut, December 14, 2012: Twenty-year-old Adam Lanza walked into the Sandy Hook Elementary School and killed 26 people, including many children, before killing himself and his mother.
•Inland Regional Center, San Bernardino, California, December 2, 2015: Two men, Syed Farook (28) and Tashfeen Malik (27), killed 14 people inside a social services center before police killed them in a shootout.
•Pulse Nightclub, Orlando, Florida, June 12, 2016: A 29-year-old man named Omar Mateen committed the deadliest shooting in recent U.S. history when he killed 49 clubgoers and wounded over 50 others before police killed him.
•Route 91 Harvest music festival, Las Vegas, Nevada, October 1, 2017: 64-year-old Stephen Paddock shot over 1,100 rounds of ammunition at the country music grounds. He took the shots from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel, killing 58 and injuring 851. He also shot at jet fuel tanks at the adjacent McCarren International Airport, but they did not ignite. It is the worst single-person shooter incident in U.S. history. Police shot and killed Paddock; his motive is still unknown.
This is just a sampling of the mass shootings in the United States from the last thirty-plus years. They occur in offices, homes, schools, malls, even churches. One of the most terrifying examples of active shooter terrorism comes in the form of sniper shootings from highway overpasses and tops of buildings. In October of 2002, Maryland and Virginia residents experienced nine different sniper attacks in eight of their communities, resulting in thirteen deaths. In July of 2016, Dallas, Texas, experienced a sniper attack that resulted in the deaths of six people, most of them police officers, before the attacker was himself killed by police.
The illustration above shows the Mandalay Bay Hotel at right, where Stephen Paddock was when he shot people at the fairgrounds next to the McCarren International Airport at left. He was armed with high-powered AR-15-type assault rifles and other weapons.
According to the December 14, 2016, Huffington Post, there have been over 200 school shootings alone since Sandy Hook, and the Los Angeles Times in its April 11, 2017, edition stated that a gun has been fired on school grounds nearly once per week since Sandy Hook. And this is just the threat to our children and college students. We are all sitting ducks, no matter our age, gender, color, or creed.
Government and law enforcement officials have struggled to find ways to better track potential active shooter incidents before they happen, such as engaging public awareness, monitoring large gun sales, monitoring social networking sites for possible chatter, and looking for patterns of past criminal offenses, but the truth is, many of these shooters were off the radar until they committed their heinous crimes. This means that we have to be as proactive as possible in staying alert and aware and knowing what to do if we one day find ourselves caught in the crossfire.
CYBERTERRORISM
A new breed of terrorism lurks, feeding off our growing dependency on technology. In the first half of 2017 alone, cybercrimes were on the rise. In just the first ninety days, cyberattacks were the highest in history, according to the security technology firm ThreatMatrix CyberCrime Reports.
Teens and Online Privacy
Most of today’s teenagers have grown up with cell phones and computers. They don’t think twice about communicating openly with people all over the world in social forums and on phone apps. They friend strangers on Facebook and follow strangers on Twitter, and they send pictures and personal information without a second thought.
As parents, it is critical to sit down with teenagers and even younger children and talk to them about using common sense when leaving behind a “digital footprint.” One way we can do this is ask them to think about what they are posting for the long term. Is it something they would be okay with a prospective boss seeing? Maybe a girlfriend, future husband? Will it come back to haunt them in some way? Everything they post online leaves behind a digital footprint that may be impossible to get rid of later when it counts.
Find out what their motivation is for posting. Is it to find new friends, communicate with others who have similar interests, or stay in touch with school friends after hours? Encourage them never to tell their real name or where they live to a stranger, even if it is someone they’ve been gaming with or chatting with for a while. Everyone is untrustworthy until they prove they can be trusted. Tell them to keep their social networking privacy settings on and not to list their age or home address and cell phone number.
When they tag each other on pictures, remind them that they are now bringing in the privacy of others. Tagging friends without permission is not cool. Have your teens set up pre-approval for others who wish to tag them so that they can keep control of the type of posts that appear on their pages.
If you suspect someone is trying to sexually engage your child or teen, get their username and report them to the website administrator. Talk to your child or teen about the dangers of being too open, even if the person they are chatting with claims to be the same age or gender. Pedophiles know exactly how to prey on young people and are adept at doing so. If your teen or child says they were asked to meet someone locally, report it to the police.
If you suspect your teen is bullying others online or being bullied, address the issue immediately before it gets out of control. If they are being bullied, help them disengage from the bullies on all online formats. Teens, like adults, use sarcasm and teasing, so help them identify real bullying from normal human behavior. Bullying is cruel and mean and is an actual form of abuse, so report anything threatening to the local police and to the website administrator of the platform they are using, such as Facebook or Twitter. When bullies and threats are reported, these platforms will investigate and block them.
Even if it appears your teens are not listening to you, they are, and no doubt they want to keep themselves safe while online, too.
Young people are online for hours every day, accessing the Internet through phones, computers, tablets, and other devices, often talking to strangers. This can expose them to everything from credit card scams to bullying to potential sex offenders.
The idea that terrorists can harm us via our electronics, especially our computers, is becoming more accepted as we all experience hackers getting into large corporations, banks, manufacturers, government, military, and commercial firms, threatening to expose our private and sensitive information to the world, not to mention to the hackers. Our names, addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, bank accounts, passwords, email accounts, private photos, store accounts, and everything in between can now be displayed to the public or sold on the deep Web’s black market for information. Within moments, our bank accounts can be wiped out, our identities changed, and we can end up with changes to our credit reports, accounts opened in our names, crimes committed with our data, and more.
Anything that we do on our cell phones and computers is now open season for the new terrorist hackers and information thieves and traders.
Cyberterrorism, or a cyberattack, is an attack carried out via technological means, usually computer networks, by a terrorist group, individuals, organizations, criminals, or anyone else who serves to benefit from shutting down information systems and taking the data for their own agendas and motives. Malicious cyberattacks can involve the destruction of networks or the alteration of data systems, and rarely do the hackers and cyberattackers make their names known, usually choosing to remain anonymous or operating under a bizarre name. In some cyberattacks, spyware can be installed in systems without the users’ knowledge—a new kind of electronic stalking.
The worst kind of cyberterrorism involves taking down infrastructures and crippling industry, as in 1999 when Amazon.com was shut down by a “denial of service” attack, exposing massive amounts of personal private data, and representing a major threat to critical systems such as air traffic control, government operations, and energy grids. Cyberterrorists play on the fears of the public, but they also play on our vulnerability, exposing to us our overdependence on technology. The individuals and groups behind these attacks can be professional hackers, lone wolves, or even groups of kids with too much time on their hands.
Although our computer use makes us vulnerable enough as individual users, a true cyberattack is one that affects a large number of people, sometimes entire nations. There are two types of attacks:
Syntactic—Malicious software that includes self-replicating virus programs that attach to other programs and files and reproduce. Often viruses are hard to find, as they can hide within the computer’s memory. Worms are self-sustaining running programs that use specifically designed protocols to replicate themselves over entire networks. Think of a worm burrowing its way through an apple. Worms are fast-spreading and can infect thousands of systems in only a few hours. Trojan horses appear legitimate and are made to perform actual tasks, but hide within them unwanted and damaging activity. Trojan horses are used to introduce worms and viruses into a computer and are often embedded in free software trials found on the Internet.
Semantic—These attacks modify and disperse information, both true and false, sometimes to hide the tracks of a hacker. These attacks are often used in politically motivated cyberattacks between fighting nations eager to retrieve sensitive information or take down important systems and databases.
The FBI is the main body investigating cyberattacks in the United States, with the CIA joining in for attacks that involve foreign interests. According to the FBI website, cyber “intrusions,” as they call them, are becoming more and more common, more dangerous, and more sophisticated. Both private and public sector networks are in danger of being attacked at any time with little to no warning, and unless we have the technological capability to repair or stop the damage in the first place, we remain vulnerable. Some of the ways the FBI is trying to counter this growing problem are:
•A cyber division to address cybercrime
•Specially trained cyber squads at FBI headquarters and field offices staffed with agents and analysts who are on top of the latest protection methods
•Cyber action teams that travel the world to assist in computer intrusion cases
•93 computer crimes task forces nationwide
•Partnerships with other federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, and others
Still, as we find the latest ways to stay one step ahead of the cyberattackers, we can be sure they are already two steps ahead. Prevention is absolutely critical, but so is a solid continuity plan when there is an attack.
One type of attack is called ransomware and involves the hackers demanding a ransom be paid before they will stop the attack. One such attack, called “Wanna Cry,” occurred in May of 2017, involving a worldwide ransomware cryptoworm that targeted computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system. This attack alone involved over 200,000 victims and infected over 300,000 computers in over 150 countries until the worm was stopped when a 22-year-old security researcher in England found the kill switch! Which proves that for every brilliant hacker out there, there is an equally or more brilliant security researcher or anti-hacker able to find the worm and smash it in its tracks.
The new battlefront is in the cyber world as people from all over the globe are stealing money and information by hacking into computers and servers at an alarming pace.
The hackers may promise federal agents a decryption key once the ransom is paid, but they don’t always follow through, frustrating FBI efforts even more. Thus the need to evolve and find new ways to prevent the attacks from ever happening. Luckily, researchers are advancing methods to recover lost data from worm-infected machines. Companies are even hiring tech geniuses, often very young, to continuously come up with ways to push back against cyberattacks. It may sound like the makings of a science fiction movie, but today’s terrorism involves armies of tech geeks armed with brains as sharp as razor blades.
Avoiding Malicious Emails
Oh, we’ve all seen them. Emails that look like they come from friends, banks, financial institutions, and government agencies, yet something seems amiss when we look deeper. Unfortunately for many, you won’t know it’s a virus about to infect your computer until you’ve opened the link. Spamming and phishing is rampant and can fool the best of us.
If you get an email request for information from someone you aren’t sure about, contact the company directly. Do not open the link, get the information on the actual company website. Let them know about the email. They will probably have you forward it.
Make sure your filters are on your email programs, which will help block incoming spam accounts. But when you do get spammed, try to report it so that the company is aware and can take actions to stop it.
Think about keeping your email address private, especially on social networking sites and even on your own personal website, to avoid being put on “the list” for spam and phishing attempts.
Even if an email sounds threatening and appears to come from the IRS or some powerful agency, don’t fall for it. Never open the link, and do not under any circumstances give them personal information. The IRS will contact you by mail if there is an issue with your taxes.
One of the best ways to spot something you feel unsure about is to check the email address of the person sending it. Let’s say the email appears to come from your phone company, but when you click on the address bar and see the email address, it has some strange or random name that has nothing to do with your company. There’s your clue that you are being victimized. Even an email from a good friend can end up coming from a strange address. Check before responding!
Some of these emails can look so legitimate you are sure they are not malicious, so you click on the link and go to a website that looks like the correct site. But beware, as you may have been directed to a fake site. Check the URL and compare it to the actual company’s URL. Often scammers will use a variation of the real URL, but you can still see the difference.
Mark spam as junk and get rid of it. You can also go into your email settings and block addresses that spam you often.
If you feel you have been a victim, change passwords and account numbers, contact your bank and credit reporting centers, and even consider changing your email address.
Identity theft is the biggest concern of individuals, including having their finances wiped out and financial records made available for public viewing. Identity theft is a huge priority for the FBI and other agencies, and many banks and finance institutions are implementing better protections, even insurance, for their clients should their identities be compromised. Insurance companies are also getting involved with offering identity protection for their clients. Even if this doesn’t prevent the cyber intrusions from happening, it can go a long way towards helping to stabilize the potential damage to individuals who only want to live their lives and hang on to their hard-earned money.
There are some steps we can take as individuals to try to prevent major damage from cyberattacks and from smaller hackers. Having a firewall and keeping it turned on is one. A firewall will protect your computer from hackers. For individual computers that are newer, there are built-in firewalls, but firewall software can also be purchased.
Do not ignore notices from your service providers about updating your phone or computer. Companies such as Microsoft are constantly having to upgrade operating systems to protect them from hackers.
Also make sure you have the most current antivirus software installed as well as anti-spyware protection, which can come in the form of a software program to download or purchase at a computer store. However, some people fall prey to fake spyware programs that can be downloaded for free on the Internet. These may actually be spyware or some kind of malicious code that will cause damage. Buy from trustworthy companies.
Keep your OS, or Operating System, as up to date as possible, and watch what you download from the computer! Never open an email attachment or a forwarded attachment that looks strange, even if it is from someone you know. This is one of the biggest ways to spread viruses, as many poor victims have learned the hard way.
Lastly, turn off your computer when not in use. It may be a pain, but nobody can hack your computer overnight when it is not even on!
READINESS IS CRITICAL
Knowing what the threats are is the beginning of being able to develop action plans that can increase our chances of survival. We cannot begin to put together a preparedness or response plan unless we first have an idea of what the most likely emergencies and disasters we might be facing are. There will be local, regional, national, and global events, and each one will require a different method of response. Having a broad view of the potential emergencies, predictable or otherwise, allows us to face reality, as frightening as it may be, and formulate the best ways of keeping ourselves, our families, and our communities as safe as possible.
In the coming sections, we will look at detailed methods of preparing for and responding to every possible type of emergency, as well as resources for use after reading this book. Readers will begin to see patterns emerge, as many of the suggestions for surviving an earthquake can apply to living through a hurricane, with some modifications. With the advent of the Internet and social networking, there are so many new resources and educational websites that can empower the individual citizen to be ready for just about anything.
With all of the aforementioned threats we face, and many smaller emergencies that happen as a part of every day life, there is no excuse for not having solid information at our fingertips.
A personal author note here: As a single mom raising a child in earthquake and fire country, I joined Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT), coordinated through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). CERT, which I will discuss more in the “Resources” section, allowed me to learn everything I needed to help myself, my son, my family, and my neighborhood as well as serve as a “second responder” to local emergency personnel should they need me.
My actual training in disaster preparedness and response, though, began years earlier when I was lucky enough to work at Warner Bros. Records in Burbank, California. The Warner brothers themselves were huge advocates of preparedness for their thousands of employees, especially when it came to those pesky earthquakes. I took part in free training through Warner Bros. with the Burbank Police and Fire Departments and was privileged to serve as a safety monitor at the record company, having learned everything from fire safety and disaster assessment to earthquake response, search and rescue, and triage/medical aid. It not only made me feel empowered, but it gave my fellow employees someone to turn to when they had questions.
Today, I am active with CERT in Northern San Diego County, and I have also become a licensed amateur radio operator. I continue to get training, which now includes bioterrorism, disaster psychology and trauma, fire abatement and response, toxic and chemical hazards, victim extraction, building assessment, prophylactic distribution, crowd control, and a host of other skills. I will share a lot of what I have learned in this book, but please keep in mind that I am not a superhero. Anyone can learn these skills, and anyone can do what is needed to deal with any emergency short of an alien invasion.
For that I will have to depend on my charm.
