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News Release
FOR RELEASE
March 19, 2002
LESSONS LEARNED FROM TERRORIST ATTACKS:
AMERICA'S EMERGENCY WORKERS NOT ADEQUATELY PREPARED
Washington, D.C., March 19, 2002 - The attacks of September 11th redefined the scale of emergency for which America must be prepared, but emergency responders lack the equipment, training, and information to adequately protect themselves as they meet the challenge of protecting their communities, according to a new report issued by RAND.
Protecting Emergency Responders: Lessons Learned from Terrorist Attacks, sponsored by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), summarizes the results of a conference held in New York City on Dec. 9-11, 2001, and organized by the RAND Science and Technology Policy Institute. Participants were emergency workers from around the country who responded to the bombing of the Alfred E. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the anthrax incidents that occurred during autumn 2001.
"The recent terrorist attacks provide valuable information as to how prepared we are to respond to devastating emergencies," says the report's co-author, D.J. Peterson. "At the World Trade Center, more than 400 - about one-sixth - of the victims were emergency responders. Our goal with this report is to provide government decisionmakers, union leaders, industry executives and researchers with a better understanding of what needs to be done to protect those who come to our assistance."
Conference participants noted that these terrorist attacks presented unique challenges: they were large in scale, long in duration and included a complex range of hazards. Additionally, these sites are crime scenes. By examining three areas - personal protection equipment (PPE), information and training, and site-management - they identified the following specific problems:
- Protective equipment - respirators, clothing, eye protection - is not adequate for extended search and rescue campaigns.
- The highest priority for the firefighters and police first on the scene was saving lives, but they didn't have equipment adequate to protect themselves. As one law enforcement officer noted, "...people are going to do what their instincts tell them, and that's to save lives. They'll think about the consequences secondary."
- When appropriate protective equipment was available, it often was not used because of lax enforcement of safety procedures and lack of information regarding the hazards threatening emergency workers.
- Emergency workers mentioned serious problems with safety enforcement, controlling site access, monitoring and assessing hazards, communicating risks to front-line workers, and managing and distributing safety equipment.
- Emergency responders were perhaps least prepared for anthrax. Information and training on how to protect themselves changed on a daily basis.
The report features first-person accounts from attendees. For example, according to one of the participating firefighters, "Firefighting equipment is designed well for firefighting operations that typically last 30 minutes, 40 minutes, or an hour. But when you have fires burning for six, eight, nine weeks, bunker gear gets to be pretty cumbersome."
The conference participants offered concrete recommendations to address the challenges and improve response capabilities, including:
- Develop PPE guidelines for long-duration responses including rubble, human remains, and a range of respiratory threats, for which responders are currently inadequately equipped and trained to handle. If appropriate equipment is not available, address any roadblocks to its development.
- Define the protective equipment required to safely and efficiently respond to biological incidents, threats and false alarms.
- Determine how to rapidly provide responders at large incident sites with useful information about the hazards they face and the equipment they need for protection.
- Provide guidelines and define responsibilities for enforcing protective equipment use at major disaster sites, to include controlling site access.
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