All Nuclear Terrorism Is Local: Rebuttal

In the July/August issue of Emergency Management’s Last Word, Arnold Bogis wrote about how local communities need to prepare for an improvised nuclear device. Mr. Bogis is correct that it will be hours and days before there will be a substantial federal response to this sort of catastrophe; therefore local communities must have plans in place to save lives immediately following a nuclear terrorist attack.

Mr. Bogis was wrong when he stated “many communities haven’t gotten the point.” He said local communities haven’t planned adequately because they have assumed that:

• “Any nuclear explosion will completely destroy a major city; and
• The military is the only organization capable of responding.”

Nothing could be further from the truth.

He pointed to the analysis by the nonprofit Trust for America’s Health that states, “Surge capacity remains the largest threat to the nation’s ability to respond to a major catastrophe,” as his basis to say that the communities haven’t gotten the point.

It should be asked why local communities haven’t done anything about surge capacity.

Look to any major hospital in the country to find the answer to that. At any given time, our hospital emergency rooms are operating at or above capacity. Health-care providers are trying to treat multiple critical patients at a time. Even critical patients are being housed in hallway beds while more critical patients are being treated in a room, and the waiting rooms are stacked with patients at all levels.

Of course surge capacity means setting up alternate care facilities, but who’s going to staff these when there are already shortages? One local informal questionnaire of regional hospitals showed that after an earthquake more than 90 percent of health-care workers would try to reach their workplace to help with surge capacity once they knew their families were OK. However, when the same health-care workers were asked about a nuclear terrorist event, just 40 percent said they would return to work even if they knew their families were safe.

The feds will help and bring incredible technical and financial resources with them, but local critical infrastructure operations will still fall on local agencies.

I don’t believe any local agency is counting on or wants the military to “swoop” in and handle all aspects of this scenario. So is Mr. Bogis correct in assuming that local communities don’t have a plan for nuclear terrorism? Or that local officials “delude” themselves by thinking that existing response plans for dirty bombs can be “ramped up to deal with nuclear terrorism?”

Maybe, but more likely they’ve deluded themselves by basing all of their plans on the Planning Guidance for Response to a Nuclear Detonation. Although it’s a well-thought-out document, it is the beginning of the planning process, not the end. The document is too long and probably only read by emergency managers and geeks, not by health-care workers, incident commanders or anybody else that will be in the hazard zones in the early stages of an attack. The document also assumes a level of nuclear understanding by first responders, first receivers and the general population that doesn’t exist.

This is an almost unthinkable event, and almost impossible to plan for, yet plan for it we must. I recommend the opposite approach suggested by Mr. Bogis. Start with more probable scenarios like a large chlorine release, either terrorist or industrial, find plans from others around the country and incorporate the best of the best, then practice it.

With real drills, the mistakes in the plan will become evident. The hardest part of writing a plan is determining the best way to test it. Drills should be realistic with as much happening in real time as possible and as many players involved as possible. After it’s been tested, modified and tested again, it’s time to add surrounding areas. Soon you’ll have something close to an “all-hazards plan” that’s realistic, known and validated. After that, modifying parts of your all-hazards plan to include an improvised nuclear device will be relatively easy.

Matt Taylor worked for eight years in the U.S. Navy on a nuclear submarine and taught radiation protection. He’s currently the EMS coordinator for the Salt Lake City Fire Department.

[Photo courtesy of National Nuclear Security Administration/Nevada Site Office.]