Planning for a Terrorist Emergency

Preparing for a disaster at American Universities and Colleges has changed dramatically. Prior to September 11th higher education institutions merely planned for natural disasters. American soil in no longer as safe as it once was. In addition to preparing for tornados, preparing for hurricanes, preparing for earthquakes, and preparing for fires there is need to prepare for a terrorist attack. A natural disaster is an event of nature that takes human lives or destroys property. In contrast, a terrorist attack is a man-made event that takes human lives and destroys property. Terrorist attacks appear in many forms biological terrorism, chemical terrorism, explosive terrorism, nuclear terrorism, and radiation terrorism.

Data gathered from FEMA confirmed that the majority of terrorist attacks were explosive. In 2002 there were a total of 199 international terrorist attacks against buildings. Out the 199, 70% of the attacks were bombings (Brown & Lowe 1-16). Since actions taken to plan for explosive attacks are similar to preparing and planning for other types of attacks, explosive attack recommendations and supplies would be sufficient to handle such emergencies.

Knoy Hall on the well-regarded campus of Purdue University is emergency planning for a terrorist attack. There are many variable involved that make emergency planning for an explosive attack difficult, including the number of individuals in or around the targeted structure and the tactics used by terrorists to