Accidental Releases of Hazardous Materials and Relevance to Terrorist Threats at Industrial Facilities
-
Nicholas Santella
and Laura J. Steinberg
Hazardous material releases, some with serious consequences, are a common occurrence in the U.S. Of late, the hazards posed by releases caused by terrorist attacks or natural disasters have been of particular concern. Although terrorism directed at hazardous material handling industries within the U.S. has not yet resulted in a significant incident, there is much recent experience with serious accidental releases resulting from natural disasters. Case studies are developed from a number of recent natural disasters and severe weather events that resulted in large releases of hazardous materials. These case studies are used to illustrate parallels between the risks posed by hazardous material releases resulting from terrorism and natural disasters; examples include the presence of a dominant mechanism for physical damage, difficult-to-control and unforeseen scenarios of releases, limited specific regulation of the risks, and a complex and difficult response environment. Hence, lessons learned from previous experience with releases during natural disasters can be used to increase the resilience of industrial facilities and to improve the planning for hazardous material response in the face of terror threats. Routes to improve hazardous material industry preparedness for terror attack and natural disasters include physical hardening of facilities and equipment, utilization of passive safety devices, greater consideration of facility layout and siting, application of inherently safer design principles, and additional legislation at local, state or federal levels.
©2012 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
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- Research Article
- Detection of Dangerous Materials and Illicit Objects in Cargoes and Baggage: Current Tools, Existing Problems and Possible Solutions
- Trust in Public Safety Answering Points: A Swedish National Survey in the Late Modern Network Society
- Crossing Paths: Trend Analysis and Policy Review of Highway-Rail Grade Crossing Safety
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- Importance of Uniformity in Local Emergency Management Agency Web Sites
- Centralization and Decentralization of Policy: The National Interest of Homeland Security
- Text Analysis of After Action Reports to Support Improved Emergency Response Planning
- A Social Vulnerability Index for Disaster Management
- The Role of Modeling in the Resilience of Cyberinfrastructure Systems and Preparedness for Cyber Intrusions
- From the McDonald Report to the Kelly Committees: The Government Research and Policy Making Process Connected to Oppositional Political Terrorism in Canada
- The Private Sector and the Role of Risk and Responsibility in Securing the Nation's Infrastructure
- Volunteer Fire Department Perceptions of ICS and NIMS
- Optimal Blends of History and Intelligence for Robust Antiterrorism Policy
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- Request and Response Processes for Department of Defense Support during Domestic Disasters
- Coping through a Disaster: Lessons from Hurricane Katrina
- The Current NIMS Implementation Behavior of United States Counties
- Public Support for the Department of Homeland Security
- Experimenting with GIS in Doing Damage Assessments: A Trial Run at Disaster City
- Delayed-Bang Approach Towards More Sustainable Critical Infrastructure Risk Management
- Mobilizing for International Disaster Relief: Comparing U.S. and EU Approaches to the 2010 Haiti Earthquake
- Committed to Protection? Partnerships in Critical Infrastructure Protection
- Mitigating Terror and Avoidance Behavior through the Risk Perception Matrix to Augment Resilience
- Cost-Benefit Analysis of Advanced Imaging Technology Full Body Scanners for Airline Passenger Security Screening
- Using Systemigrams in Problem Definition: A Case Study in Maritime Resilience for Homeland Security
- Understanding User Needs for Map Symbol Standards in Emergency Management
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- Active Shooter on Campus: Evaluating Text and E-mail Warning Message Effectiveness
- Engineering the Incident Command and Multiagency Coordination Systems
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- Use of an Emergency Notification System in a Multi-Agency Functional Emergency Exercise: Feedback from Participants
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