Scenario: Attack a chemical storage facility
Scenario
Attack a chemical storage facility at places like water treatment plants, pesticide factories, etc. to release a large cloud of deadly chemicals.
Description
If you are a terrorist, then one of your goals is terror. Few things are more terrifying to society than mass murder. There are several things that make mass murder terrifying:
- Each of us understands, at the most fundamental level, what it means to die
- Each victim's death directly and personally touches the lives of many others
- The loss of clusters of victims who are key individuals can disrupt a community or a business.
For example, the World Trade Center disaster killed approximately 3,000 people. If you assume that each victim directly touched the lives of 100 other people -- family members, neighbors, close friends, business associates, etc. -- then those 3,000 deaths had a direct and measurable effect on the lives of 300,000 other people. People around the world, totally detached from the event in every way, can be deeply affected. In addition, many businesses that employed the victims were unforgettably changed by the deaths.
For terrorists, the ultimate goal of mass murder is mass. The more people killed, the stronger the effect.
There are several well-known ways to cause mass murder. For example:
- The terrorists could use a nuclear bomb.
- The terrorists could attack a a nuclear plant with the hope that the nuclear material released from the plant would cause a high death toll.
- The terrorists could attack a stadium. A large stadium filled to capacity contains 50,000 to 100,000 people.
Another approach to creating a massive death toll is a chemical attack. Substantial quantities of many toxic chemicals are already in place in urban areas. By dispersing these chemicals with explosives, terrorists could potentially kill as many as one million people in a single attack. Two examples:
- The first successful chemical weapon ever used was chlorine gas. Germans used clouds of chlorine gas in WWI. Many municipalities use chlorine in the water supply and store large quantities of chlorine on site.
- In 1984, methyl isocyanate leaked from a storage tank at a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, killing almost 4,000 people and injuring 3,000 others. There are dozens of pesticide plants across the U.S.
By finding storage facilities for highly toxic chemicals like these near urban areas, and by detonating bombs at those sites, terrorists have the ability to kill up to one million people at one time. According to this report, there are more than 1,000 sites in the U.S. that store over 100,000 pounds of an extremely hazardous substance.
In addition, these hazardous substances are often transported by train or truck. These chemicals often pass through dense urban areas along the way. Trains and trucks are generally unguarded, so they make inviting targets.
Industrial plants are managed by industry, and therefore have varying levels of security. Terrorists would search for a site with lax security, with a large quantity of toxic chemicals, near an urban area. Terrorists could then either:
- Attack the facility with explosives. The attack could involve something as large as a truck bomb, but does not need to. A small explosion able to rupture a tank would be sufficient. Radio controlled aircraft, or simple gunfire, might be useful in an attack like this.
- Gain employment at the facility, learn their way around and attack the facility from inside.
Damage Potential
The release of a large cloud of toxic gas in a dense urban area could kill up to one million people under ideal conditions. In the very simplest calculation: If you value a human life at $1 million, then there is the potential for $1 trillion in damage from an attack like this.
Potential Solutions
Thankfully, this is one scenario for which there are simple solutions:
- End the storage of hazardous chemicals near populated areas. Move manufacturing plants and chemical storage tanks dozens of miles away from urban and residential centers.
- End the shipment of hazardous chemicals through densely populated areas.
- Replace processes that use hazardous chemicals with less hazardous chemicals
- Restrict the amount of hazardous material that can be stored at any facility
- Run detailed background checks on all employees
- Secure facilities in meaningful ways. An unguarded chain link fence around the perimeter of a plant is not meaningful security. The barrier should be able to stop a truck approaching at 50 miles per hour and should also prevent any unauthorized entry on foot (e.g. - climbing the fence at night). The barrier should be far enough away from the plant so that a truck bomb detonated at the perimeter has no effect. Airspace over the plant should be protected.
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