Posted on 11/19/2002 10:42:04 AM PST by MadIvan
As London comes to terms with the threat of a terror attack, the Prime Minister has counselled that we should be vigilant on the Tube, and the emergency services and hospitals have given reassurances that the aftermath of an attack could be handled. We know we are living with a new level of threat: the difficulty lies in calculating a response that is not hysterical, but would meet any terror onslaught that uses chemical and biological weapons.
There is no hard evidence that any attack on the Tube is likely, let alone imminent - but with the UK now identified by al Qaeda as a target, it is prudent to prepare for the worst. London Underground's first stop as it reviews safety procedures should be New York.
When terrorist attacks using weapons of mass destruction were first taken seriously as far back as the mid-Sixties, the US Army's Special Operations Branch from Fort Detrick (home of the military's biological warfare programmes) was asked to establish the vulnerability of New York's underground railways.
The army spent four days testing the effects of a harmless anthrax simulant both from inside the tunnels and from the streets outside the stations. The results were so horrific that most remain classified after almost half a century.
Soldiers posing as passengers dropped light bulbs filled with the fake anthrax onto the tracks and measured how the bacteria would travel through the draughty tunnels. The consequences proved that an entire city could be contaminated with small amounts of bacteria. Strong wind flows and absence of natural light (which kills bacteria) are the perfect environment for the survival and distribution of most kinds of lethal bacteria and viral agents.
A mere 10 grams of dried bacteria (anthrax or tular aemia - Saddam has quantities of both) would infect hundreds of thousands of passengers in a very short time. Those waiting on platforms or inside trains would inhale more than 10 infectious doses after just five minutes.
Because London's Tube system is deliberately designed not to be airtight, but rather to allow ventilation to and from the street, entrances to Tubes and ventilation outlets would allow the escape of airborne gases and germs. Bugs blown out of the Underground would soon infect the city.
David Kelly, one of Britain's top biological warfare experts, doubts whether there are any effective counter-measures in the event of an attack short of spraying every inch of London's Tube system and all the stations either with formaldehyde or newly developed antibacterial foams. This would be hugely expensive and time-consuming.
The British military do, in fact, have standby plans for such an attack, rehearsed in great secrecy. They div ide the living into three rather brutally named groups, "walkers, floppers and goners". In the chaos, little could be done for the last two groups. Dealing with panic in the streets and attacks on pharmacies and hospitals would soon require savage crowd-control methods. A more complete strategy for response was developed in the late 1990s in New York by Jerry Hauer, the man behind New York's Office of Emergency Management.
Hauer had sole responsibility for dealing with biochemical attacks on his city, and his planning is still in force there today - and widely consulted as a model for other cities.
A couple of years ago, representatives from the Met came to his 20th-floor headquarters in Wall Street to gather advice from him on dealing with a chemical/biological attack in a confined space.
Hauer's disaster scenarios were deemed by many to be scaremongering. They look less far-fetched these days. What he did see very clearly was that the secret of effective terror prevention is to have tested the worst options and prepared a planned and strategic, not just an emergency, response.
In this spirit, there is much that London can learn from New York's careful preparation for such an attack. Sensitive detectors could be placed in vulnerable locations and specifically throughout the London Tube system. London could imitate Hauer and train 4,000 police, fire and emergency units and 1,500 doctors and nurses in how to deal with biochemical attacks.
They should all, as first responders, be issued with special protective masks containing high efficiency particulate absorbing filters. If those on the front line of the emergency treatment fall ill, the battle is lost.
But the biggest problem by far would be just knowing that an attack has taken place. Suicide bombers can take a holiday on this one, as terrorists may do their deadly work and walk away before the outbreak even begins.
So, critically, doctors and nurses need careful training to recognise the difference between a common flu outbreak and the first symptoms of anthrax or even smallpox, which are similar.
Finally, the capital should consider spending some £1 million, as New York did, on a couple of mobile emergency trailers filled with containment vessels that can isolate, analyse and transport samples of suspected germs or chemicals. The vehicles also carry antidotes and medicines. They would be the capital's front-line tanks after a bacterial invasion.
We should also be talking to the pharmaceutical houses to acquire and stockpile millions of doses of antibiotics and antidotes (the Americans keep them in huge mobile refrigerated trucks at secret locations). None of this would halt all the terrible consequences of an attack, but it would certainly alleviate it.
When the Home Office held a major biological attack simulated scenario at the Greater Manchester police training school, the operation, codenamed "Firestorm", involved a terrorist attack using anthrax. The exercise apparently ended with a huge argument between the police and the local authorities on whether to evacuate 200,000 people from the city.
The official conclusions - perhaps wisely - remain a guarded secret. Now that the stakes are higher, we can't afford to take chances. Terror is best countered by being prepared to face the worst.
Tom Mangold is the author of Plague Wars, a book on biological warfare
I DID WHAT I COULD WITH MY GASMASK
by George Formby
Now I'm getting very fond of my gasmask I declare,
It hardly ever leaves my side.
I sling it on my back and I take it everywhere,
It even comes to bed at night.
It's been a real good pal to me I must confess
And helped me out of many a mess.
My sister had a lot of socks to mend,
So she gave me a bouncing baby to tend,
And when I felt it leaking at one end,
Well I did what I could with my gas mask.
I bought a farm because I like fresh air,
At milking time a tried to do my share.
And when I found the bucket wasn't there
I did what I could with my gasmask.
The lady living next door, Mrs. Hicks
She heard the sirens blow one morn at ten to six.
She dashed outside in nothing but her nicks,
But she knew what to do with her gasmask.
By train I went for a very tiring ride,
There wasn't any corridor outside.
And when I felt the turning of the tide
Well I did what I could with my gasmask.
To see old Epstein's Adam in the nude
I once thought I'd go with my Aunt Ermintrude
And when she sniffed and said 'Uh!' how very rude
Still he knows what to do with his gas mask.
For years I've courted Anabella Price
And always found her just as cold as ice
Until one night the lass forgot her ma's advice
And I did what I could with my gasmask.
Regards, Ivan
No Darth Vader impersonations? Oh that's too bad, that's all the fun of owning a gas mask. ;)
Luukkkeee...I am your faaaather...
Love, Ivan
All right, I'll take it's a "wouldn't be prudent at this juncture" thing. ;)
Love, Ivan
Well, "wise guy", certainly. ;)
Love, Ivan
Wrong. If that's true why did the British government issue them to civilians during WWII? A gas attack even by aerial bombing doesn't deliver sufficient concentrations of the agent to overcome the average person within 4 seconds, (the maximum time that should be necessary to put on a gas mask). On the tube the gas dispersal system is likely to be very crude, probably a reaction mixture in a container, which would be thrown into a train carriage or onto a platform. Also, cyanide producing chemical reactions often produce a whitish vapour and an almond like smell, hence you would know something was going on before a lethal concentration of the gas got to you and so you could put on the mask before you were overwhelmed.
Of course, a biological attack is a completely different matter. You would have to wear your gas mask all the time while you were on the tube if you wanted to be sure you were safe from a microbial agent, since you would have no warning that the agent had been released. Strictly speaking only a military NBC-grade gas mask is guaranteed to give protection against biological attacks.
Anthrax is probably the most likely biological agent to be used, less likely are tularemia and plague, these two are more difficult to mass-produce and disperse as they are gram negative non-spore bearing coccobacilli. However, these two bacteria would cause a dangerous epidemic, since unlike anthrax they would spread to other people who were not infected in the attack. Mass production and freeze-drying of anthrax spores, under safe conditions, isn't that easy and I suspect al Qaeda would need help from Iraq, or some other scumbag nation, to mount an anthrax attack. A gas attack would be a lot easier and wouldn't require stuff to be imported, if the perps know anything about basic chemistry.
A Smallpox attack on the tube would be the worst case scenario, because by the time the first cases have been diagnosed and the alarm raised - hundreds of people all around Britain, and probably across Continental Europe, would already be infected. The Soviet's India-1967 bioweapon strain of Smallpox is the most lethal strain available, (at least a 50% mortality rate in unvaccinated victims). Unfortunately, this is the strain Sodem Insane is most likely to have, since the Russians kindly supplied it to North Korea and probably their Iraqi pals too. The British Government should buy in enough Smallpox vaccine to do the entire population and should make the vaccine available to any Briton who wants it. That would make mass vaccination easier if a Smallpox attack occurs, as well as not tying the fates of all Britons to the decisions of a bunch of incompetent PC left-wing half-wits.
What if al Qaeda attacked during the next firefighters' strike? We would be screwed. If the firefighters' union won't accept a reasonable pay offer and thinks it can hold the country over a barrel like this at a time of crisis, then I think the union bosses are worse enemies of Britain than al Qaeda.
Yes, and that's even more true here in Britain, where we can't even carry a penknife with a blade longer than 3 inches! If you did see a few terrorists on the tube about to throw a gas bomb, then the Police would still expect you to use "reasonable force" even though you'd be outnumbered, unarmed and unable to get help from the security forces. Of course, the thought of allowing our people to arm themselves to resist terrorists hasn't even occurred to the statists who run Britain. Blair would probably be more horrified at the idea of your average Brit carrying a weapon, than the idea of a successful gas attack on the tube! We could do with a few FALs over here, or just bog standard Saturday night specials, but we won't get them, not in a million years, or after 100,000 Brits die at the hands of al Qaeda.
I thought they were going on strike tomorrow morning. As it stands, I don't have to go anywhere tomorrow, thankfully.
I am appalled by the firemen. I've had two companies shot out from underneath me - it's not easy to find a job, and yet these blighters want 16% pay rises with 30 applicants for each fireman job.
Regards, Ivan
I am appalled by the firemen. I've had two companies shot out from underneath me - it's not easy to find a job...
Its a bloody nightmare finding postdoctoral research positions at the moment too. My current one runs out in February and if I don't get something lined up soon I will have to resort to teaching undergraduates statistics and basic computing skills, even though my PhD is in Molecular Microbiology. I'm looking around for postdoctoral work in the USA, its amazing how much competition for posts there is here in Britain.
I have on BBC News 24, they just said it's "10 hours" to the next strike. Perhaps some are leaving earlier than others, who knows.
The strike is a really pain in the arse for us because it means we can't work outside normal University hours, including this weekend and the Saturday after next, which means we have to put off large experiments etc.
My sympathies. Labour is absolutely helpless and hopeless in all this.
Its a bloody nightmare finding postdoctoral research positions at the moment too. My current one runs out in February and if I don't get something lined up soon I will have to resort to teaching undergraduates statistics and basic computing skills, even though my PhD is in Molecular Microbiology. I'm looking around for postdoctoral work in the USA, its amazing how much competition for posts there is here in Britain.
On average there are 300 applications for every IT job posted on British web boards. Gordo should be cutting taxes and regulation as fast as he can.
Regards, Ivan
You have an advantage over me there Ivan. I can only get terrestrial TV and only four channels. Channel 4 gives lousy reception here and I can't even receive Channel 5, still I suppose I'm not missing much considering its tastes!
Regards, Ivan
I tune in if there is some breaking news to be seen, and UK History isn't bad.
Classic FM Newsnight is the best source of news however in terms of broadcast media.
Regards, Ivan
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