On September 11, 2001 the Twin Towers in New York City were attacked by terrorist group Al-Qaeda, in an event that would rattle the very foundation of the United States. This traumatizing and tragic event would lend into question the stability of America against foreign forces. However, despite the seemingly bleak outlook towards the potential threat of similar attacks, it can be clearly seen that these hypothetical dangers would not be the downfall of the American state. As former President Abraham Lincoln once stated, “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” This assertion remains highly valid and applicable to contemporary society, despite its old age. …show more content…
These internal flaws were especially exemplified during the 9/11 attacks as resistance to the alien strikes was amplified. One of the main reasons that Lincoln’s observation remains true in the modern day is due to the faulty and disjointed communication found frequently in emergency services. During the attacks on the twin towers, authorities such as the New York Fire and Police Departments played a crucial role in assisting evacuees to safety. However, in spite of these critical positions, the ability to communicate between the fire and police departments was exceptionally limited, putting strain on rescue operations. In fact it was stated that, “... these two agencies didn’t train together often or well. They couldn’t talk to each other by radio because their frequencies did not match. And they didn’t share equipment,” (Dwyer and Flynn 57). This quote demonstrates that underlying problems between the two departments had been prominent long before the crisis at the Twin Towers. Moreover, dispatching issues served as a security hinderance to the civilians trapped within the walls of the towers. This claim is upheld even greater with the fact that, “FDNY chiefs had instructed the PAPD and …show more content…
During the construction of the Twin Towers a new code on building safety was created that ultimately “made it cheaper to build tall buildings” by cutting back on safety regulations. This included lowering the requirements for space dedicated to “evacuation and exit,” (Dwyer and Flynn 107). When the Twin Towers were crashed into by the planes, the three stairwells in each building were largely rendered useless due to their congested configuration (110). In addition to this disastrous layout, “the builders should have installed the fourth staircase, one specifically designed to accommodate the 1,000 people who would use the large public meeting rooms at the top of each building,” (267-268). This conveys that the Port Authority, who were supervising the construction of the buildings, had near complete disregard towards the security of the people in the Twin Towers. To further cement this point as especially heinous, much of this is a result of prioritizing financial profit over the wellbeing of people. As aforementioned, the subtracting of safety features such as a fourth staircase made tall buildings more cost effective. Again, there is a fundamental issue within America if corporate greed and recklessness can surpass the absolute necessity of public safety. Also, not only was there irresponsibility in the making of the building, but
As stated earlier, the 9/11 attacks revealed the indomitable spirit of the US and awakened a sleeping giant, which was very reminiscent of the US response following the attacks by the Japanese on US forces in Hawaii. Both 9/11 and Pearl Harbor attacks galvanized the American people into action and caused the government to heavily invest resources to combat enemies of the US; the Axis enemies during World War II and “the terrorists”, wherever they may be located, following 9/11. One of the first NIST deficiencies to be corrected were the operational protocols for intra- and inter-agency communication. This, in part, has been addressed in the Incident Command System (ICS) since the purpose of ICS is to integrate operations between public safety entities at all levels of government.
No steel-beam high-rise had ever before (or since) completely collapsed due to fires! However, such complete and nearly symmetrical collapses in tall steel-frame buildings have occurred many times before—all of them due to pre-positioned explosives in a procedure called “implosion” or controlled demolition. (22)
As per the assignment, the attacks on the Pentagon and the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center will be compared and contrasted based upon the response for each incident as well as a critical analysis as to the security concerns that the responders were confronted with and the importance of an inner and out perimeters security measures. The incidents at both locations were identical in nature with both involving a seven sixty seven jetliner fully loaded with jet fuel traveling in excess of six hundred miles per hour colliding with three large structures causing a significant amount of damage, loss of life. Both incidents for the short term taxed every resource, accountability of emergency vehicles, personnel from on duty and off duty fire department and police departments, civilians by the hundreds showing up to assist with search and rescue, health and safety as well as security of the entire area. What sets the two incidents apart was a multitude of things from the different structures that were involved in the
Communication is Key Although there were many reasons to the cause of 9/11 , lack of communication cost more lives than needed. During 9/11, communication between the three departments of justice was subpar at best, they ended up panicking at crisis and were not able to come together as a group, but stay as individual squads. Some forms of communication were good though, face-to-face communication proved to be best fit in the buildings and firefighters were able to understand where to go to save more lives. Lack of communication during 9/11 exposed the problems between departments in New York, which ultimately caused greater loss of lives inside the twin towers.
A total of 19 men, split up in three groups of five and one group of four, passed all airport security checkpoints and boarded four airplanes. They all had knifes of some kind, attacked the cockpit about 30-45 min into the flight, threatened the passengers with fake bombs, and hijacked the plane with the intent on ramming them into important American locations. One hit the North Twin Tower of the World Trade Center, one hit the South Twin Tower of the World Trade Center, another hit the Pentagon, while the last never made it to its destination in Washington D.C., it crashed into a field 20 min from there. The response to the hit of the towers was immediate. Every kind emergency agency rushed to help. However, since they didn’t have standardized procedures on how to deal with something like this and there was no universal or shared radio system, it was utter chaos. Departments struggled to communicate with each other which complicated the task of relaying important information. The New York Times tells us, “Numerous firefighters, police officers and other rescue workers who responded to the initial disaster in Lower Manhattan were killed or injured when the buildings collapsed. Hundreds were treated for cuts, broken bones, burns and smoke inhalation.” (Schmemann,
September 11, 2001, marked a key date in U.S. history, the most deadly terror attack in the world. The 9/11 terror attacks presented many issues with the communication of first responders and citizens. The likelihood of surviving the World Trade Center attacks was dramatically reduced due to the lack of communication during the response. Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn, in their book 102 Minutes, provides evidence of how the response groups and people working in the Twin Towers had not prepared for communication problems if something tragic were to happen. Analyzing multiple sources of communication, Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn, Joel Roberts, and Brendan Sasso all agree that communication during emergency response and preparedness aids in a more successful
On September 11, 2001, planes struck and collapsed the North tower and the South tower of the World Trade Center with many people who died due to acts of terrorism. To declare that terrorism caused all the deaths is a major understatement. At least 1,500 people who survived the attacks had died due to many other factors in or of the building. One of the causes of many lives lost were communications, coordination, and command of the FDNY and the NYPD. In 9/11 the problems of radio communication between firefighters, and the police department impacted the ability for the firefighters to have enough information where the people were trapped on the floor and what floors the fire was on. This issue of communication affected the radio systems of
September 11, 2001 showed that there were weaknesses in communication and emergency response. It also significantly changed the role police have with the prevention of terrorist acts. As Oliver stated, “... policing in the post-September 11 environment is not only a response to the specific events...but also an amalgam of change brought about by various political, economic, and social factors in the United States...” (Homeland Security for Policing, 2007, p. 43).
The terrorist attacks on September 11 changed America forever. The attacks led to President Bush creating the Department of Homeland Security which tried to centralize the federal response to all terrorist threats. However, local police, firefighters, and emergency medical technicians will still be the first to arrive at the scene of an attack. These first responders face a unique and increasingly dangerous task when reacting to a terrorist attack on US soil.
On September 11, 2001, the nation suffered a traumatic event in which impacted the world’s perspective on terrorism and violence that will last for generations to come. In the early hours of a calm Tuesday morning business was flowing as usual. The World Trade Center symbolized power and wealth of America, leading it to be the most prominent target to hit in order to cause deadly destruction. An eyewitness of the event, Ed Hashey described the first explosion that took place. He states, “Before you knew it, it was 8:40 a.m. and I was at the World Trade Center station at Cortland Street. I got off the train, walked up to the street exit, and right as I saw daylight, I heard a huge explosion and then many pieces of metal debris, some the size of car hoods, were falling all around me and a very large crowd of people” (Source 9). No one at the time understood what was happening, the nation was in a state of shock. This passenger airplane turned out to be American Airlines, Flight 11 which came out of Boston, Massachusetts from Logan International Airport (Source 1). The original route was heading to upstate New York when suddenly it was hijacked by terrorists which then controlled the plane to come down towards the city, specifically Manhattan in an aim to hit the World Trade Center. Everyone believed that it was a true accident and a tragedy, but to Ed Hashey he stated, “At that point the police ordered a mass evacuation, and I remember thinking this was a terrorist act. It was just too coincidental to be anything else” (Source 9). The worse was only yet to come.
The incident I am going to be talking about in this paper is the 9/11 incident and the communication challenges law enforcement agencies dealt with. We all know what happen on September 11, when a terrorist group al-Qaeda hijacked planes and crashed them into the world trade center. When the buildings were collapsing helicopters was flying around and giving warnings to the police and fire department on one of the building they were in was about to collapse. Most of the police officers in the North Tower heard those warnings and were able to evacuate (Sasso, 2015). But that information never reached firefighters, for a simple reason: Radio systems for the Fire Department, the Police Department, and the Port Authority Police were all incompatible with each other (Sasso, 2015). The reason why firefighters and the police department could hear or talk to each other was the technical problems with the radios did not go a long range. “As soon as they went five or ten floors up in the buildings, they couldn’t talk to each other,” recalls Chuck Dowd, who was the head of New York’s 911call center (Sasso, 2015). The communication was so bad that one of the firefighters had to call 911 instead of using his radio to call them to help another firefighter that was hurt due to know one can hear on the radio.
September 11, 2001, the start of terrorism in The United States, and the end of innocence in our lives. Some of us are lucky to never know the fright of that horrid day. For others though, the events that transpired on September 11 will live on forever in their memory.
The last subject I would like to mention is the interface between emergency management and homeland security. The interface between them is staying in their own lane especially when a disaster or crisis occurs. There are no grey areas when it comes to these two entities. According to David McIntyre, he considered the interface as a “sibling rivalry” because “one was older than the other” (Lucus-McEwen, 2012). Department of Homeland Security was created to focus on terrorism. While focusing on terrorism the emergency management piece was deprived resulting in emergency management taking a life on its own. No matter how you look these two entities they are family. But the funny thing is neither one can stand on its own without the help
Every American citizen can remember exactly where they were on the day September 11, 2001, this day was burned into the mind of American because the biggest terrorist attack in American history would occur. Two Boeing planes hijacked by a terrorist organization named al-Qaeda who would crash the planes into the world trades centers, sending America into shock(Pizzo,2016). There have been countless laws and regulations passed in America since the awful terrorist attacks on 9/11, has it been effective or a failure. The attack on September 11, 2001, will forever be a turning point in American history, it raised one of the most important questions in American society today what is more import for a citizen freedom or security and the law put in place to combat these horrific terrorist attack ultimately would be ineffective and tear American more apart on political issues.
Approximately six year later, the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center turned the United States upside down. The incident killed over 2,500 people, while damaging a substantial amount of the surrounding structures in downtown Manhattan making the accessibility of the surrounding areas nearly impossible. Courts in the affected area were closed for several days and even weeks as the event made communication, personnel, and public access highly difficult to obtain (Birkland & Schneider, 2007). Security and emergency planning was no longer a question of whether or not to consider, but instead they became the highest priority of all federal and state agencies at future risk following the attack.