September 11, 2001 Have Had a Significant

¶ … September 11, 2001 have had a significant impact on the way people view security. A recent study has indicated that there are two major tendencies that people experience after a major traumatic event like the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and Pentagon: "a long-term lasting search for security…and a medium-term risk avoiding behavior in the loss domain." (Sacco, 2003, p. 1113) In other words, terrorist attacks can alter the way people view security as well as the way people behave afterwards. And it is not only the people directly involved in the incident that are affected, but it has been demonstrated that the emotional and psychological effects of terrorism are have spread across the nation as whole. (Silver, 2004, p. 47) Therefore it is important to study the effects on 9/11 on the decision making of local emergency responders in response to the attacks and see what changes were necessary to re-establish security.

In Arlington VA, site of the Pentagon attack, the Arlington County Police Department had a problem with correctly staffing. It has been discovered that "Many ACPD officers attempting to reach the Pentagon, including detectives who were responding from headquarters, found themselves full engaged in rerouting traffic…." ("Arlington County After Action Report," p. C-7) While it was important to make certain that the fire and emergency medical responders were sent to the correct place, having detectives on traffic duty took them away from their primary task of uncovering evidence at the crime scene. It has been identified that local police "rued the lack of ability to meet authorized personnel strength." ("ARCO Conference Report," p. 20)

Secondly, this lack of available personnel forced many communities to send officers to help at the scene. But the "lack of overall knowledge and acceptance of the ICS (Incident Command System) among law enforcement," seriously inhibited the ability for these difference agencies to cooperate. Many local officers either did not have the proper training in cooperation with other agencies during a major crisis, or they simply did not follow their training. These two problems, lack of personnel and the failure in interagency cooperation are two aspects of the terrorist attacks that need to be evaluated and improved according to the standard methodology of the Corrective Action Program found within the National Incident Management System (NIMS). ("Evaluate and Improve") This will not only improve local responses, but also responders from across the country can learn from this experience.

Question #2

In 2011, the Federal Emergency Management Administration conducted a simulated emergency in order to evaluate the response by government officials. This was called the National Level Exercise 2011, and simulated a large, devastating "earthquake in the New Madrid Seismic Zone, encompassing four FEMA regions (IV, V, VI, VII) and eight Central U.S. Earthquake States." ("National Exercise Program") According to the after action report, there were a number of areas where improvement was needed, particularly in the field of public information. In the 21st century, social media has become an important area of communication that only recently has been incorporated into the planning for emergencies; and therefore contains a number of deficiencies. For instance, "At the national level, social media tools were often used as a one-way means of disseminating information…" ("NLE-11 AAR," p. 46) Because the information generally went in a one-way direction, out from the government, it was considered too much like the old-style traditional media and did not utilize the ability to receive information adequately.