Not sure if it means anything yet. Just that uneasy feeling thing about Camden going on in my head.
Bridge walkway closed as security precaution Friday July 08, 2005
CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) The pedestrian walkway on the Benjamin Franklin Bridge is being closed indefinitely, effective Saturday, due to the heightened level of security on transit systems, the Delaware River Port Authority said Friday.
The bridge carries road traffic and the PATCO commuter rail line over the Delaware River between Camden and Philadelphia.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security placed the nation's subway, bus and rail systems on its second-highest alert level, code orange, in response to the Thursday morning subway and bus bombings in London.
The bridge's north walkway will reopen briefly on Sunday to allow riders in the American Cancer Society Bike-a-Thon to cross.
(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
http://cbsnewyork.com/njnews/NJ-BRF--Bombings-Brid-jn/resources_news_html
U.S. Terror Attack — “ Ninety Days at Most ”
Counterterrorism expert Juval Aviv spoke with FOX Fan Central about what Americans can do to protect themselves in case of a terror attack.
Do you believe another terrorist attack is likely on American soil?
I predict, based primarily on information that is floating in Europe and the Middle East, that an event is imminent and around the corner here in the United States. It could happen as soon as tomorrow, or it could happen in the next few months. Ninety days at the most.
What advice do you have for individuals that have the misfortune of finding themselves in the middle of a terror attack?
Since mass transportation is the next attack, when you travel to work have with you, a bottle of water, a small towel, and a flashlight. What happened in London is exactly a point to look at. Those people who were close to the bombs died, then others were injured or died from inhaling the toxic fumes or getting trampled. The reason you take a bottle of water and a towel is that if you wet the towel and put it over your face, you can protect yourself against the fumes and get yourself out of there.
Don’t be bashful. If your gut feeling tells you when you walk on to a bus there is something unusual or suspicious, get out and walk away. You may do it 10 times for no reason, but there will be one time that saves your life. Let your sixth sense direct you.
Try to break your routine. If you travel during rush hour everyday, try to get up a little earlier and drive to work or take the train when it’s still not full. Don’t find yourself every day in the midst of rush hour. Terrorists are not going to waste a bomb on a half empty train.
What portion of the American infrastructure do you believe is at the greatest risk for a terror attack?
We have put all of our emphasis, right or wrong, on the aviation area. What has happened, in the last two to three years, based on information we have, the terrorists have realized that they cannot hijack a plane in America soon because the passengers are going to fight back. So they realize what they have been very successful with over the last 50 years in Madrid, London, Iraq, Israel: demoralizing the public when they go to work and when they come back from work.
What they’re going to do is hit six, seven, or eight cities simultaneously to show sophistication and really hit the public. This time, which is the message of the day, it will not only be big cities. They’re going to try to hit rural America. They want to send a message to rural America: ‘You’re not protected. If you figured out that if you just move out of New York and move to Montana or to Pittsburgh, you’re not immune. We’re going get you wherever we can and it’s easier there than in New York.’
What more do you think the government can do to protect the public?
N——umber one, and this is the beef I’ve had with Homeland Security for the last four years, is educating the public on how to deal with those types of events. There’s no education. We’re raising the color code alert and that means nothing to anyone. Whether it’s green, yellow, pink, no one ever educated the public how to identify suspicious items or people. In Israel, so many of them [terrorists] have been apprehended just because people have phoned in. We don’t have that training on campuses, schools, or kindergarten.
In Israel, it’s very popular right now [amongst terrorists] to put one device to explode and time another one for five minutes later when it’s all calm, people are getting up, and the rescue teams have responded. You need to know all those things and think about those things. The government must pursue that. Law enforcement will never have enough people on the street to detect things. We don’t have that kind of manpower. That’s why the government must enlist the public.
Juval Aviv is a former Israeli Counterterrorism Intelligence Officer and President and CEO of Interfor, Inc. Mr. Aviv has also served as a special consultant to the U.S. Congress on issues of terrorism and security and is the author of “Staying Safe : The Complete Guide to Protecting Yourself, Your Family, and Your Business.”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,161962,00.html
Mass transit is an “ideal target” for terrorists to use conventional weapons or weapons of mass destruction, the head of the U.S. National Transportation Security Center said yesterday following the bombings in London (see GSN, July 7).
“First, it’s public, so there’s ease of access,” said center Director Brian Jenkins. “Second, these are congregations of strangers that guarantees attackers anonymity. And third, it’s concentrations of people in a contained environment, and that enhances the effects of explosives as well as unconventional weapons. It guarantees them high body counts.”
“To say we’re going to seal it off against terrorism cannot be done,” he told the Washington Post.
Authorities in the Washington, D.C. area sharply increased patrols of mass transit systems following the London bombings, the Post reported (Layton/Ginsberg, Washington Post, July 8).
Other cities also took additional measures. Authorities are monitoring the air and water supply in New York City for biological and chemical agents, the Post reported today.
In addition, New York City yesterday morning doubled the number of police officers assigned to patrol its transit systems. A police officer was assigned to every train, with a total of 6,000 officers patrolling the system, according to the Post (Goo/Eggen, Washington Post, July 8).
New York Senator Charles Schumer (D) yesterday said he planned to seek a quadrupling of the $100 million in federal funding designated in a homeland security spending bill for mass transit and rail security, the Associated Press reported.
“It seems clear mass transit is the terrorists’ target of choice,” he said. “The bottom line is, we are not doing enough to protect mass transit.”
He also said $50 million of the homeland security funds should be allocated for developing explosive and WMD detection devices for subways (Sam Dolnick, Associated Press/1010wins.com, July 7).
Walk-through explosive detection portals are now being tested at some U.S. airports, but such screening procedures are unlikely to be used in subways or other mass transit systems, Inside Bay Area reported today.
While airline security screening is already a fairly time-consuming process, “imagine the line at a subway entrance,” said Susanne Gordon, a Sandia National Laboratory physicist who works on chemical and biological weapons detection.
In addition, while explosives leave detectable traces, chemical and biological weapons are more difficult to uncover, she said (William Brand, Inside Bay Area, July 8).
One expert said mass transit security issues could not be solved quickly, AP reported.
“Very little technology can be applied in this area in an effective way,” said security consultant Rafi Ron (Associated Press/USA Today, July 8).
Elsewhere, Japan today responded to the London bombings by boosting security at its nuclear plants, among other measures, AP reported (Mari Yamaguchi, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, July 8).