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Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management Crisis and Emergency Management Newsletter Website |
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December
2003
Volume 5
- Number 3 |
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My Perception of Terrorism Risk By Andrew Levinson Its' impossible to live and work in the Washington D.C. region and not think about terrorism. I work a block from the White House and each and every day I walk past the sections of Pennsylvania Avenue and E Street that have been closed for security reasons. Each day I watch as parking garages at federal office buildings inspect cars entering the garage. I've had to change the parking garage at which I park because several buildings near my office now only allow tenants to park there. When I ride the Metro I think about the sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway and how the trashcans have been removed from the stations to reduce risk. For a while after the anthrax attacks, my office mail was yellowed and brittle from the radiation treatments used as a precaution. In my idle moments of commuting I role-play "what if..." scenarios in my head. I work for the International Association of Fire Fighters as a Health and Safety Specialist and terrorism and weapons of mass destruction are part of what I deal with on a regular basis. I knew several people who were killed on September 11th, 2001. Some were fire fighters with whom I have worked, one was my wife's distant cousin whom I had only met once or twice, and some were friends of friends. Having grown up in the suburbs of New York, the World Trade Center was an icon and at the same time, just another set of buildings where people worked. Regardless, the legacy of that day is something I continue to deal with each day. My clearest memories of September 11th were on September 12th. The following day, though most of the office was closed, I went in with a handful of people to help. The city was practically closed, the roads were empty and I cruised in to work barely having to stop at a traffic light. I discovered that my office was now inside the security perimeter for the White House and there were heavily armed guards at the corners. I had to show ID to the Secret Service to get onto my block and drive into the parking garage. That morning I was sitting with my boss and some other senior people in my organization that had worked at the New York City Fire Department. Long before there were official lists of the dead or missing, I listened as they compared lists they had received from friends still on the job. It seemed like if they didn't know the guy then they knew his father or brother. I thought back to Oklahoma City and all the guys I knew who had worked at the Murrah Building bombing and the tales they told me of horrors nobody should have to endure. Terrorism is not an abstract concept to me. I have witnessed its aftermath and seen the toll it has taken on America and on the people of Washington D.C. Everybody I know talks about the next terrorist event in terms of "when" and not "if." There is an Italian Jew named Primo Levi who wrote about the role of chance or luck in his survival of the Holocaust. Sometimes matters of life or death are as simple and as random as turning left or right. Shortly after evacuating my office building on September 11th there was a news report of a car bomb at the State Department at a location I had driven past only minutes earlier. Fortunately, the report turned out to be grossly incorrect, but I remember like it was yesterday - the chill I felt at having cheated death. In my idle moments, I wonder if I will be so lucky next time.
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