From Simulations of Attacks By Terrorists Illustrate Challenge Officials Face:
Sometimes there is no ‘right’ response, except in retrospect. If, after a bombing, you dispatch scores of medical, fire and police personnel to evacuate the wounded and secure the scene, many of them will die if terrorists have set a second bomb to detonate there. If you first order the bomb squad to sweep the area, the delay may doom the wounded.‘A terrorist incident is different from an accident or natural disaster,’ says J. Richard Russo of Cornell University, an expert in decision making. ‘You’re dealing with an intelligent opponent. If you prepare for A and they find that out, they’ll go to B.’
Even absent clearly right responses, ‘there are definitely wrong responses,’ says Col. Dave McIntyre, director of the Integrative Center for Homeland Security at Texas A&M University and former dean of the Naval War College. If both EMT and fire crews are sent to the site of an attack, for instance, authorities have no one to dispatch if there is a second attack. If officials don’t close the first freeway exits out of a city, evacuees will all slow down to get off at the first opportunity (Col. McIntyre says everyone makes a beeline for the first motel), hopelessly snarling traffic all the way back to the city.
‘And if you fail to tell people within 30 minutes of an attack that their kids are safe and being sheltered in place, it’s too late to tell parents not to go pick them up,’ says Col. McIntyre. ‘Then the fire chief tells you he can’t get his people to the attack site because the roads are jammed.