MTI Report S-01-02 National Transportation Security Summit Washington, D.C. October 30, 2001 a publication of the Mineta Transportation Institute College of Business San José State University San Jose, CA 95192-0219 Created by Congress in 1991 FHWA/CA/IR-2002/01

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOREWORD 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3 OPENING REMARKS AND INTRODUCTIONS 5 MORNING SPEAKERS 9 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 47 KEYNOTE SPEAKER 61 AFTERNOON SPEAKERS 69 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 105 CLOSING REMARKS 115 ABBREVIATIONS, ACRONYMS, AND TERMS 117 Foreword The Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI) is proud to be at the forefront of policy and management research into today's surface transportation issues. This publication, a transcript of the October 30, 2001 National Transportation Security Summit, is one of our most important documents. MTI began research into surface transportation security issues in 1996 and was about to release the third in an ongoing series of studies on this issue when the September 11 attacks occurred. The World Trade Center and Pentagon strikes created an urgent need to disseminate the latest research paper's lessons learned and security checklist. The principal author of the studies, Brian M. Jenkins, is widely regarded as a counter-terrorism and transportation security expert. His expertise and the body of research led MTI to present the National Transportation Security Summit in Washington, D.C. In addition to providing information on counter-terrorism measures, the summit highlighted national security and disaster response training programs. MTI worked with two members of the MTI Board of Trustees, John Horsley, the Executive Director of the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO), and Bill Millar, President of the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), to coordinate logistics and registration. Vivienne Williams of APTA was particularly helpful as the event coordinator. The co-sponsors of the summit were the U.S. Department of Transportation Research and Special Projects Administration (RSPA) and the California Department of Transportation, and for their participation, I thank Ellen G. Engleman and Jeff Morales respectively. The invitation-only summit included state transportation department directors, the general managers of the larger transit agencies, the international presidents of the 15 largest AFL/CIO transportation labor unions, and U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) modal administrators and security leaders. We were especially pleased that Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta was able to provide the keynote address. Secretary Mineta's time is very much in demand, and everyone in attendance was grateful for his words and the update on what the United States Department of Transportation is doing in light of recent attacks on U.S. soil. In a very limited period of time, we were able to assemble a fine team of expert presenters and distinguished individuals. I'd like to thank RSPA Administrator Ellen Engleman for joining me as moderator and also thank the following people for their presentations: Jeff Morales, Director, California Department of Transportation; Pete Cipolla, Chair, APTA; John Horsley, Executive Director, AASHTO; Brian Jenkins, Mineta Transportation Institute, Principal Investigator, Research Team Leader; Dr. Larry N. Gerston, Mineta Transportation Institute, Research Team Member; Dr. Frances Edwards-Winslow, Mineta Transportation Institute, Research Team Member; Mortimer L. Downey, III, Consultant, PBConsult; Dr. Sherrie Anderson, Program Manager, U.S. DOT Office of Intelligence and Security; Robert H. Prince, Jr., General Manager, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority; Steve Vaughn, Assistant Chief, California Highway Patrol, and Dr. Christine M. Johnson, Program Manager, Operations Core Business Unit, Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). It is my hope that the discussions contained within will educate the reader about resources available and reassure that the United States, while not immune to, is not defenseless against acts of terrorism. Sincerely, Rod Diridon

Executive Director

Mineta Transportation Institute Executive Summary On October 30, 2001, the Mineta Transportation Institute joined together several agency representatives from key transportation and security agencies across the country to discuss security concerns related to the transportation infrastructure across the United States, and to present the latest research of MTI’s counter terrorism team. Agency representatives from both the private and public sector were invited to participate as panelists in discussing how their organizations had implemented new measures since the September 11 attack. Several proactive programs were discussed as possible training programs. The summit included question and answer sessions. The keynote speaker was Secretary Norman Mineta. The moderators were Rod Diridon of Mineta Transportation Institute and Ellen Engleman of RSPA. Panelists included: Secretary Norman Mineta, Secretary of Transportation, United States Ellen Engleman, Administrator, RSPA Jeff Morales, Director, Caltrans Pete Cipolla, General Manager, Valley Transportation Authority John Horsley, Executive Director, AASHTO Brian Jenkins, Mineta Transportation Institute Counter Terrorism Research Team Leader Dr. Larry Gerston, Mineta Transportation Institute Team Member Dr. Frances Edwards-Winslow, Mineta Transportation Institute Team Member Mortimer Downey, Consultant, PBConsult Sherrie Anderson, Program Manager, Land Transportation Security Robert Prince, Jr., General Manager, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Steve Vaughn, Assistant Chief, California Highway Patrol Dr. Christine Johnson, Program Manager, Operations Core Business Unit, FHWA Invited participants included the top management and security leadership from state departments of transportation, major transit systems, transportation labor organizations and federal agencies. This transcript was reviewed and edited to assure it would not include information that would aid terrorists.

Opening Remarks and Introductions ROD DIRIDON:

Ladies and gentlemen, if you’d come forward and find a seat, we’ll begin in about two or three minutes.

Can you all see the view graph well?

Why don’t we begin and we’ll meander a bit while we are filling time. We have a couple of our participants who are arriving late and we’ll give them a moment to arrive.

I’m Rod Diridon. I have the distinct pleasure of being the Executive Director of the Norman Y. Mineta International Institute for Surface Transportation Policy Studies. We have shortened that for obvious reasons to the Mineta Transportation Institute. And it happened that we were specializing in counter terrorism studies, kind of an esoteric subject up until recently. And our third study was due to be published around the first of the year. Circumstances dictated that publication date be accelerated. It has been and you are the first to see it on the table out in the foyer. So welcome to each of you and I’ll give you the commercial I have to go through that otherwise I get the hook.

The Mineta Transportation Institute was created in 1991 in the Intermodal Service Transportation Efficiency Act. It was re-authorized in 1998. We are a policy institute, unlike the other thirty-two national university transportation centers. We are located in a college of business; are required to do only policy and administrative and management studies; and, are required also to do studies that apply to current situations that are not theoretical. We’re guided by a twenty-five member Board of Trustees. The names of the Board of Trustees are in the back of the booklets that you picked up. Many of them are here today. I thank them profusely for their guidance and support during the evolution and development of the Mineta Transportation Institute.

We have thirty-eight projects going in seven countries, employing 65 Ph.D. level researchers at the current time, with many more research assistants. We have a Master of Science and Transportation Management, which is delivered through the California State University system, through the beneficence of the California Department of Transportation’s video conference bridge. I also thank Jeff Morales who is here, the Caltrans director. We have about 40 students in that Master of Science program. We also have the obligatory web page and so on, so tune in if you’d like to see what we’re doing. We’re pleased to be of help to any of you who might need that help.

The reason why you’re here today, and we’re here today, is because two of the members of our Board of Trustees—John Horsley, who is the Executive Director of AASHTO, and Bill Millar, who is the President of APTA—knew that we were doing this third in the sequence of counter terrorism studies. They asked if we could come to Washington and give a briefing to their leadership groups. They called separately. I asked them to call each other and see if they could get together. They each said, happily, that they would be happy to have their activities, the briefings, put together. So we had the leadership of APTA and AASHTO interested in having this kind of a session. Then, one of the members of our Board of Trustees—Ed Wytkind, who is the Executive Director of the transportation trades department of the AFL-CIO—said, "Well, how about including labor?" So we included an invitation to the presidents of the 15 largest transportation trades unions. And then we got a call from the Secretary of Transportation’s office indicating that his modal administrator should be attending. So of course, they were invited. All of a sudden, we had a transportation security summit on our hands. Of course, that was nice. We called the fine new administrator for the Research and Special Programs Administration, Ellen Engleman, and she said that she was pleased to cosponsor the program. Jeff Morales indicated that he would be happy to cosponsor. And so we had the funding. And, here we are.

We’re presenting today, in the morning session, the latest of the Mineta Transportation Institute’s security studies. That will be led by Brian Jenkins, who I’ll introduce more fully later. The introductions, by the way, throughout the program, are going to be abbreviated because you have those resumes and so on in your packets, and I’ll not take the time for the lengthy introductions that would normally be appropriate. In the afternoon session, we’ll have presentations from the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Federal Transit Administration, the U.S. Department of Defense, and other national security training and disaster response training programs. And this is to give you a menu of training programs that you might want to send your staff to, in order that you might be better prepared to defend against and respond to terrorist activities.

I’ll ask you now to turn your beepers and cell phones off, please, if you already haven't done so. It's unlikely that you’re going to get much reception down here anyway. But please do turn them off. And I think that about covers it.

I should mention, as a closer, that several of you have asked the Mineta Transportation Institute to come to your properties or your locations to do vulnerability assessments. While we had not been prepared to do that, and have told you that we weren’t, we have brought the team together and they’ve decided that they can do those. They’re preliminary vulnerability assessments. If you want us to come by for about three days, we have a program now set up so that we'll be able to give you an idea of how well you are prepared to respond. We do not do the plans for you. You need to go to commercial organizations and they’ll put together the plans, the security and the [Inaudible] plans for you. But, we can do what we might call "a vulnerability assessment."

Morning Speakers

Let’s proceed now with the program. And the first person to welcome you today is someone who is very fondly thought of by the Mineta Transportation Institute because technically, she’s the boss. She’s the new administrator for the Research and Special Programs Administration. Ellen Engelmen has been appointed by the President, with the Secretary’s support. She’s been confirmed unanimously. She has both an undergraduate and a law degree. She’s a Reserve officer. And she lives on a houseboat, which is kind of interesting, which she had built, specifically for that purpose. She has a home back in Indiana, where she loves gardening. And I’m a gardener too, so we have that in common. Would you welcome please, administrator Ellen Engleman.

ELLEN ENGLEMAN:

Thank you, Rod. I love it when somebody says I’m "technically" the boss. We’ll talk about that when the check is delivered. How about that?

(Laughter)

Good morning. As administrator of RSPA, which we fondly call the Research and Special Programs Administration, which you have to admit, even for government, it’s a pretty good acronym to not explain a lot. We’ll hopefully share a little bit with you later today about what RSPA does. I’m proud to be a cosponsor with an incredibly important meeting. We have a new reality. This is no longer a hypothesis. It is no longer something to think about as we’re sitting over dinner or having a few beers or any other informal activity. Our new reality began on September 11th. And we have very special guests here today to help lead us in these discussions. And I want to start by thanking John Horsely and AASHTO, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials; Peter Cipolla and APTA, the American Public Transportation Association; and Jeff Morales and Caltrans, the California Department of Transportation, for being here.

I’m especially pleased that Rod Diridon and the Mineta Transportation Institute—and I’m going to call it MTI, not to be confused with the other MIT—MTI has worked so rapidly to put this important seminar together. Because, when you’re dealing with terrorism, and the struggle against terrorism, timing is absolutely everything. Rod and MTI have worked hard to enable us to have this time so that we can bring some of the best minds together to bear against the new reality we now face. Those best minds are in this audience. Rod and the people of MTI have shown the same kind of agility that we will all need to address the challenges posed by terrorism and the serious crime against our surface transportation systems. And it’s just not surface transportation, as we know. It’s air transportation, water transportation, sub service transportation. The hard events of September 11th brought the vulnerability of air transit systems into focus. But the attacks against public transportation systems have been occurring. Do you remember Tokyo? The subways in Paris; Israel’s buses; and British railroads and railways? These are precursors to the main event, if you will. And while we didn’t have enough of a wake up call with those events, I certainly think the alarm clock was ringing on September 11th.

While we’ve had threats to U.S. transportation in recent years in some isolated events, the larger scale terrorism into U.S. homeland targets was really hypothetical. On September 11th, the hypothetical became real. And today, this new reality is here and now. The horrible events are forcing change on America, change Americans are accepting as their own mobilization. Americans of today are not unlike those of our parents’ generation, in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, who quickly dropped the notion that they could stay out of the war while the war continued in Europe and Asia. Six decades ago when we went to war, our troops deployed overseas to face the enemy. They fought valiantly and prevailed— soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, Coast Guard men. They had what they needed—bravery, selfless determination, dedication, and a strong sense of American values for which they were fighting. But there was something else that caused us to help win that war, and that was American industry and technology. The technological superiority of the U.S. and our allies enabled them to raise, equip, arm, move, and supply the forces that won the war. It was war production by a highly skilled workforce, with access to raw materials, which won the war. Without the industrial might of the United States and her allies, World War II may have had a different ending.

Today, we face a faceless enemy, hidden in caves, half a world away. We have sent our air power and special forces, backed by the very best technology, to engage the enemy and those who harbor them, on that front. That faceless enemy, as we learned on September 11th, may, as well, live among us—driving on our highways, riding our trains, subways, and buses. Many of the keys to victory in this long war will come from American technology. As we seek the means to protect our surface transportation infrastructure from attack or misuse, our allies will be technology. At RSPA, we’re already working to bring technology to bear. We’ve gone to the research community with a broad agency announcement, soliciting ideas to deal with potential transportation related threats. These include: risk and vulnerability assessment; planning for transportation related contingencies; innovative approaches to threat protection and evaluation; reduction of vulnerabilities from critical infrastructure interdependencies; innovative use of smart technologies; approaches to improving the robustness of the information infrastructure responsible for transportation operational controls; and, advanced materials and structures to reduce the vulnerability of transportation vehicles or facilities for blast effects. We’ve had a significant response to our call for ideas. And we’ve extended our deadline to November 21 to allow for even more. We would encourage your participation and ask that you support us within your associations and industry contacts to respond to the broad agency announcement—which, by the way, is on our web site, too.

This month, Secretary Mineta mandated the establishment of direct action groups across the department, to move very quickly to find approaches to our security needs. For the past week, the senior members of my staff—the Office of Pipeline Safety, the Office of Hazardous Materials Safety, and the Office of Emergency Transportation—organized those direct action groups, and have been getting viewpoints from members of industry on pipeline and hazardous material transportation security. I’ll be providing the recommendations to Secretary Mineta in the coming days.

Last week, I made my first official visit to the Volpe National Transportation Research Center at Cambridge, Massachusetts. Part of RSPA, the Volpe Center has developed a number of anti-terrorist systems, such as a mobile cargo inspection system that uses commercial off-the-shelf technology and a Hummer platform. It was developed for the military and is already in Kosovo. Volpe has also developed a high-volume mailroom scanner for explosives, and a very popular vehicle inspection handbook.

Let me say a few words about RSPA. RSPA may not be a household word. In fact, I can assure you it’s not a household word. But it is a functioning organization that is dedicated to the safe transportation of any hazardous materials by surface transportation and pipelines. We have focused on safety. It has not been difficult, however, for RSPA to shift to an emphasis on security. And if I may, I’d like to tell you how proud I am of the entire RSPA organization for their performance on September 11th and in the aftermath.

On September 11th, I walked into my office just a few minutes before 9:00 a.m. The attack had just begun on the World Trade Center. I was informed of the attack and I asked if the crisis management center had been activated. They said yes. I remember putting my purse down. And thirty-eight hours later I said, "Has anyone seen my purse?"

Because RSPA regulates the pipeline industry, our Office of Pipeline Safety acted quickly to provide assistance and advice to state and local officials and pipeline operators to protect the nation’s 2.1 million miles of pipeline. More than 1,000 phone calls were made quickly to establish communication and provide security guidance. We played a key role to help the Con Edison Pipeline Company assess the potential damage to its gas distribution center in the vicinity of the World Trade Center. Forty-two square blocks of New York’s city pipeline had to be quickly contained and fixed.

RSPA also operates the Department of Transportation’s Crisis Management Center (CMC), which I mentioned a few minutes ago. In less than 30 minutes of the initial attack on September 11th, the CMC went into 24/7 operation. It provided a flow of operational information to the leadership of the department, as well as to the White House and Cabinet leaders on developments within the nation’s transportation infrastructure in the air, on the land, and on the water. Our Office of Emergency Transportation (OET) arranged for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to move to the disaster site. OET moved the specialized response forces, the urban search and rescue team, personnel, equipment, and supplies, including all blood provisions. They also implemented emergency federal response plans. Plans that worked. The Office of Hazardous Material Safety responded quickly to issue emergency exemptions, enabling the governments in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania to remove HAZMAT from the disaster sites in the interest of safety.

While I am very proud of how the offices of RSPA responded, we’re looking ahead and we’re focused in the future. It only took a few moments for our world to change last month. We must not waste time in changing how we operate in the new reality. We must balance a need for safety and security with the preservation of the mobility that is essential to our economic vitality.

I’m proud to have been appointed to lead RSPA, especially at a time when the task is even more vital to our nation.

Finally, as an officer in the Navy Reserve, I frequently use naval technology and terminology. On my watch as RSPA administrator, we will be vigilant against threats to the security of our homeland. We will not accept the expedient. We will focus on the best minds and energy to finding the best to market solutions, not the first to market quick fixes. On my watch as RSPA administrator, it will not be "business as usual." While we have made hazardous material movement very safe, we must make it secure now, more than ever. The protection of the people of America is vital. To serve the American people is both an honor and a privilege. We will not let them down, not on our watch.

Thank you.

(Applause)

ROD DIRIDON:

I’m an old Navy lieutenant, not one to disobey that order.

The next presenter is the youngest Caltrans director in the history of that organization. He was a staff aide, or a transportation aide, to Senator Lautenberg. He proceeded on over to U.S. Department of Transportation as an undersecretary—Deputy Undersecretary. He then went over to the White House, and staffed, among other things, the White House commission on Aviation Security and Safety. He proceeded then to become number two in the Chicago Metropolitan Transportation Authority, where he was credited with streamlining that very cumbersome old and somewhat archaic, prior to his arrival, organization. He then stepped into the responsibility of directing one of the largest organizations in the world, the California Department of Transportation, and has turned that organization on its ear. And he is charging into the current century with a recognition that it is indeed a transportation department and not just a highway department.

Would you please welcome Caltrans Director Jeff Morales.

(Applause)

JEFF MORALES:

What Rod did not mention is that I’m his other boss, Ellen.

(Laughter)

And his other founder, which is the main reason I’m standing here.

Thank you all for coming and for being a part of this. I’m going to be very brief because my main role here today is, like you, to learn and listen, and then figure out how we move forward.

As Ellen mentioned, we are dealing with a new reality. We have a new element to our jobs, which has taken on a whole different level. This issue of security and how we address it as, in my case, the director of a state department of transportation. And in some of your cases, as operators of transit systems or other providers of transportation. And we need to look at that in terms of how we change what we do from design to operation of our facilities. We have potential targets of terrorism. In California, certainly, we’ve been looking at high profile targets that we own and operate, such as bridges—the Golden Gate Bridge, Bay Bridge, Coronado, and others, which are in and of themselves potential targets. But we also own and operate access to potential targets—the roads that lead into other facilities. And the question is—how do we protect them? How do we take the appropriate steps to ensure the security? And very importantly, and something that I certainly want to see addressed today in the discussion—what is our responsibility? Clearly, we are accountable, ultimately, for the security of our infrastructure and of our system. But I think we have to be clear about what our responsibilities are versus those of the intelligence agencies and law enforcement communities. And we need to make sure we’re not duplicating efforts, recognizing what our capabilities are and what our levels and areas of expertise are. And also, how we work through organizations like APTA and AASHTO to share information, state to state, region to region, about what we’re doing, what we’re seeing, different techniques that we find effective. And that we’re also identifying and raising up to the federal level those issues which have to be decided as a matter of policy. I think there are any number of issues which we’re all going to be dealing with, or are dealing with, that we could use some guidance from the Federal government on. And, some uniformity on our approach to them. Today, I think you’ll find Rod has assembled a panel of some of the best experts we have in the country, to help us address some of these issues. I’ve had the privilege of working with Brian Jenkins previously, and he’s about the best there is in this business. And we’re really pleased to have him here as part of this panel.

And, I just look forward to participating in it and exchanging information with all of you, and tackling this very important issue together so that we can do it effectively.

Thank you.

(Applause)

ROD DIRIDON:

Thank you, Jeff. Please extend thanks to John Allison and Wes Lum of your staff. And Ellen, the same goes to Ed Brigham and Tim Klein, and Robin Kline, and Amy Stearns of your staff who make our work a lot easier.

The next presenter is the Chair of the Board of the American Public Transit Association, who is also the General Manager of the Valley Transportation Authority in Santa Clara County. An old and good friend—I guess we’re getting to the age where we don’t say old anymore. We’re longtime friends. Our silver hair portrays that. A gentleman who is recognized as a quintessential top transportation manager in the nation—Pete Cipolla.

(Applause)

PETER CIPOLLA:

Good morning. I was going to say I am glad to be here, but it is a sad day that we all have to gather here for this purpose.

On September 11th, transit systems in New York City, Washington D.C., and throughout, actually, North America were called upon to serve our nation. And we did. We did so effectively, and in many instances, we did so heroically. We were able to do this because we in transit have worked hard to prepare for emergencies. Not so much the type of emergency that we were called upon, but for other types of emergencies. Our industry has long viewed safety and security as one of our key goals. These concepts are embedded in safety programs throughout all the transit systems in the United States and Canada.

For nearly twenty years, APTA’s system safety program, and our related system safety management audit programs… we’ve been working with our members to refine and enhance these various programs. We need to do more. Today is another example of our effort to share critical information and best practices among our membership. We have representatives from over 60 transit systems here today. After September 11th, transit systems revisited our safety programs, our emergency evacuation programs, and the effectiveness of these procedures. We are refining and sharing this information among our industry as we stand here today. We’ve also taken our responsibility of working collaboratively with the Federal government to heart. We continue to work with the FTA, the FRA, as programs in this area are being, in some cases, developed, in most cases enhanced.

Besides providing mobility choices, public transportation has another vital role. We are a key element of our national defense system. Being prepared to evacuate our citizens quickly and efficiently from areas in jeopardy is a key role. We must re-double our efforts and focus on safety and security needs of our community. I assure you that this topic will be with us at APTA for a long time to come, at the various meetings, seminars, and special sessions that we have planned for this next year and the years ahead.

On behalf of APTA, we will make certain that the safety and security of our customers, of our communities, of our employees, and our infrastructure, are paramount in our goals and objectives. I appreciate you being here today. I know that we’re going learn a lot. I know that we’re going to share some good information.

Thank you, Rod.

ROD DIRIDON:

Thank you, Pete. And a special thanks to APTA for being the primary organizer of the effort back here. Celia Kupersmith, who is the General Manager of the Golden Gate Bridge Transportation and Highway Authority—I always get that backwards—but Celia is the Vice Chair of APTA this year and a member of the Mineta Transportation Institute’s Board of Trustees. Several other of our trustees are here. I’ll not take the time to introduce them all, but thanks again, APTA.

The next presenter or "welcomer" is John Horsley. John and I began together 30 years ago as members of county governments. John from Kitsap County in the state of Washington, where he proceeded on to become Chair of the transportation committee at National Association of Counties, where we met. He then went on to chair the National Association of Counties, then went on to become Modal Administrator, and finally under Secretary of Transportation. He is now the Executive Director of AASHTO.

John Horsley…

JOHN HORSLEY:

Rod’s good at resume expansion. I like that.

On behalf of the nation’s state Department of Transportation and AASHTO, I want to thank Rod for moving very swiftly to put this event together today. This is terrific, Rod, and we’re looking forward to your team’s presentation. We want to thank Ellen and Jeff for providing the funding necessary to pull this event together. And, on behalf of AASHTO, Pete and Bill Millar, thank you for teaming to cosponsor the event.

In the wake of the September 11th tragedy and the attack, AASHTO has done four things.

First of all, we moved swiftly, together with APTA and Rod, to put this event together.

Number two, we’ve asked Tony Kane on our staff to pull together a transportation security task force to help AASHTO and our member states address the crisis that confronts the nation.

Third, at our annual meeting which will take place the 1st through the 4th of December, we are going to feature the experiences of New York, New Jersey, and Virginia DOT’s in the actual response that they made on September 11th. We think there are lessons to be learned.

And then the fourth thing that we hope that our task force will undertake is a systematic review of what we in the state DOT’s are going to have to do to better prepare and respond to future threats of terrorism and attack.

It’s a totally different mindset that we have to bring to this event today and to the challenges that lie ahead. And what’s interesting to me is that I’ve talked to CEO’s around the country, out-of-state DOTs, and I’m pleased there are so many state CEO’s here today.

Let’s look at some of the challenges they face. One of the first I talked to had identified an individual in their state Department of Motor Vehicles who had illicitly sold 18 hazardous materials permits to people with Arabic surnames. And that individual who sold those permits has since then been subject to prosecution. But that is an example.

I was in Arizona last week and the difficulty Arizona and Nevada are facing right now is the Bureau of Reclamation has had to close the road that goes across the Hoover Dam, because of concern for the Hoover Dam. And all truck traffic has now got to engage in a 23-mile detour. And they’re trying to grapple with how do they improve security at that facility, or will truck traffic have to be diverted indefinitely.

Two weeks ago I was in Virginia, and the challenge they faced on September 11th was concern over protecting the Chesapeake Bay tunnel, lest the tunnel be blown and the NAVY fleet trapped inside Norfolk, Virginia, unable to emerge.

And then the final concern, my president, Dean Carlson of Kansas. Between two and three trains a day traveled from the Powder River basin, where the nation’s major coal supply traverses many vulnerable bridges and routes to supply the utilities around the country, to supply critical electricity.

So, many points of vulnerability, and that’s one of the reasons we wanted to assemble our troops together with the APTA folks today. To learn what vulnerabilities do we face, how can we improve our response capabilities, how do we harden the nations’ transportation system and be better prepared.

And one of the things I did want to acknowledge—I see Henry Hunginbeeler, our director of the DOT in Missouri. Henry will chair our AASHTO effort along these lines. He will chair our transportation security task force. So, on behalf of Henry and all the state DOT directors and ASTHO, we want to… again, Rod, thank you for pulling this important briefing together today. Thank you.

(Applause)

ROD DIRIDON:

John, thanks to you and to Tony Kane for being such a good liaison with AASHTO. Pete, thank you for your staff—Greg Hull and all of his support. And, Nadine Williams and her supporters for making this possible.

The morning session is in a secure setting and with each one of you having been identified by virtue of your badge, which you could only obtain by showing a picture ID. The afternoon session will be under the same circumstances. So we’ll be talking about information which although not identified as top secret by any names, might be the kind of information that we would not want to discuss with the general public. Probably not because it’s so secret, but rather because it would be unnecessarily exciting and maybe frightful to them. And as a consequence, we ask that you not share it with the public when you go back home. Share it with those who have a need to know in your organizations but do not discuss it with the general public because it could be unnecessarily frightening.

The luncheon session, on the other hand, is going to be open to the public and indeed the media is going to be with us because we have had a cancellation by our luncheon speaker. His boss told him he was going to cancel. John Flaherty will not be with us, but Secretary Mineta will be our luncheon speaker. That was kind of a nice change. We began by being here in order to be accessible to the Secretary’s calendar. And then he was told that he could not be accessible with long lead times. I think that’s a security issue, primarily, and that it’s not a good idea for people to know where the cabinet members are going to be a long time in advance. And then a couple of days ago the Secretary let us know that it could either be he or John Flaherty. "Which would we rather have?" (Laughter). And I told him without equivocation, we’d rather have John. (Laughter). That didn’t go anywhere.

So, we’ll have the honor of having Secretary Mineta with us at noon. That will work by us being in the Pierce Dining Room, which is through these doors on the left hand side, actually out the outer doors and over to the left, for a quick lunch between 11:30 and 12:15. That room is not set up very effectively for presentations, so right after lunch, at 12:15, please come back into this room and we’ll have the noon presentation from 12:30 until 1:30 in this room. So you’ll have to watch your own times, please. Be back here, seated and ready to hear the Secretary, no later than 12:30.

Let’s have kind of a stretch break, while the panel comes forward then and takes their seats here in the forward area. Brian, and Larry, and Frances… I hope Frances has arrived.

(Break)

ROD DIRIDON:

It’s so nice to have an overflow crowd.

Before I introduce the panel, may I say a last thank you to administrator Engleman and Director Morales for providing the financing to allow this event to occur.

BRIAN JENKINS:

Thank you very much.

As Rod mentioned, this is research that actually began in 1996, so we have six years of research, the results of which were distilled into three volumes. The results of those three volumes were further distilled into one executive summary, and that, Rod tells me, has to be further distilled into fifteen minutes. So you’ll have to forgive the breathtaking generalizations that we’ll make in the course of this first presentation. However, you do have copies of the summary. The other volumes are available. We’ll have some time for questions and answers later, and I’d be happy to chat with you. I look forward to chatting with you, even after that.

Normally, in a pre-September 11th environment, I would have begun any discussion of terrorism with, in a sense, an admonition that these things that we are talking about, that we saw so dramatically and tragically demonstrated on September 11th, could happen here; that the terrorist threat was a reality; that large-scale, indiscriminate violence had become a reality of terrorism by the turn of the century. And that the United States had no immunity to this.

That type of introduction is no longer necessary, as underscored by the announcement made by the Attorney General and the head of the FBI last night of the possibility of another, imminent terrorist event. And indeed, I believe that another attack, whether it takes place in the next week, the next month, or the next year, is virtually certain. We know that the planning for the September 11th attack began years ago, which means that the planning for that attack was taking place while all the other terrorist attacks—the attack on the USS Cole, the aborted attempt to disrupt the Millennium celebrations, the attack on the US Embassies in Africa—were taking place. The September 11th event, of course, was orders of magnitude greater and would predictably provoke a ferocious response by the United States. In fact, it was calculated to provoke a response so that Osama Bin Laden and his lieutenants could portray it as an assault by the infidels on Islam, whereas we are desperately trying to portray it as anything but an assault by the United States on Islam. And since that reaction was predictable, I’m persuaded there were two plans on September 11th: one plan for the terrorist attacks that took place, and another plan for the survival and continued operation of the terrorist network during the anticipated counterattack and countermeasures by the United States. And that second plan almost certainly would have included a plan for the survival of the leadership and for continued communications between that leadership and their operatives and constituents in the Islamic community, as well as a capability to continue operations even while they went to ground. If one backs up in terms of the special operations planning, then, that would mean basically what we might call "doomsday operations"—operations set in motion which can and will take place without further approval or instruction from the top, things that are now ticking down to whatever that moment in time will be, whether it’s days, weeks, months, or in the mind of our adversary. We have to accept it, even years from now. And we don’t know what those plans are.

Where will those events take place? Again, we don’t know. One of the frustrating things about this is that people sometimes have the notion—the illusion—that the government knows a great deal more than all the rest of us know, despite the extraordinary national tutorial that has taken place on terrorism over the last six weeks on television and in the news media. And of course, the government does know more about many, many details. But the fact is, the Attorney General was playing it straight when he said last night, "It is frustrating. We don’t know when and where and precisely with what means they are going to attack." There may be some notions, some ideas, but there’s an enormous level of uncertainty. And so, in dealing with that environment of uncertainty, we can only look to what patterns we’ve been able to discern and what things we’ve learned about in the past to provide us with some guide for at least the spectrum of things that we need to be prepared for. And therefore, I think the work that has been done over a number of years in the MTI study is useful as a resource. It’s not a forecast of what will take place, but rather, it is an identification of the patterns that we have seen.

One of the things we have seen dramatically demonstrated is that contemporary terrorists clearly have made public transportation—public surface transportation—a theater of their operations. And it does have attractive qualities, attractive attributes, from the perspective of the adversaries. And that’s, in a sense, what we’re going to regularly do: We’re going to drop back and look at things from the terrorists’ perspective. That does not, in any way, lessen our condemnation of their actions; it simply is a perspective that we have to look at. Easy access is essential for public transportation. We cannot have the same kind of security that we have even in airports, where, essentially, luggage and freight come through a tube before they’re loaded on the airplane. And therefore, we can put measures in place at airports. We have multiple access points. This has to be extremely expensive. We can easily talk about add-ons to airline tickets for security costs of $2, $3, $4. We can’t talk about those kinds of add-ons for surface transportation without putting it out of the range of the public. The combination of anonymity for attackers, easy escape, and concentrations of people in contained environments makes public transportation especially vulnerable. It enhances the effects of both conventional explosives and unconventional weapons.

The headlines really just underscore that even before September 11th, the terrorist threat was not a theoretical thing. We’ve seen a plot to carry out a suicide attack on New York subways. Fortunately, one of the suicide bombers got cold feet and talked to a transit policeman. He did the right thing and the plot was busted up.

We’ve seen a number of things in other countries. Of course, the most dramatic one is the Sarin attack in Japan in 1995, and I’ll come back to that. But even more recently, there have been bomb threats, bombs, and most recently— clearly inspired by the events of September 11th—the hijacking of a Greyhound bus, in which seven persons died, which, by the way, illustrates an important point. There are differences in threat level between major urban transportation systems and smaller systems. The threat is not the same in New York City as it may be in some small system in the Midwest. But we have the phenomenon of one major event inspiring copycats, lunatics. So, while the smaller operators may not see themselves at the front line, in fact they may end up dealing with incidents carried out by some self-appointed soldier of God or some lunatic listening to voices inside his head telling him to carry out some actions.

We wanted to understand the threat better, so these volumes include a chronology. It is the only chronology I know of that deals with all of the attacks on surface transportation going back to 1920. That’s a bit of an assertion. Obviously, it only picks up some of the major incidents since 1920. The chronology realistically begins in the ’70s, concurrent with the upsurge in contemporary terrorist violence that we saw at the end of the ’60s and the beginning of the ’70s. But there are some frightening trends that you find when you examine these statistics. And the most frightening is that these attacks are intended to kill: 37 percent of them involve fatalities; 2/3 are clearly intended to cause fatalities. About 20 percent of terrorism attacks overall are intended to kill, so almost twice as many surface transportation incidents involve fatalities. When terrorists go after public transportation, they see it primarily as a killing field. And there’s a lesson here. It’s underlined by the fact that it is parallel with the trend in overall terrorism, in that 74 percent of these fatal attacks involve multiple fatalities, and 23 percent of them involve 10 or more fatalities. The targets are roughly split between rail and bus systems. We’ve got a breakdown here. By the way, these numbers are in the volumes that are available to you.

If we take bus and bus terminals and tourist buses together, we get about 45 percent or 46 percent. If we take rail and subway and stations there, we get something approximate. And those patterns seem to hold over a period of time. We do this in a number of splices as well, and those patterns generally percentseem to hold. The most common tactic, not surprisingly, is bombing.

One thing it does not show, by the way, is bomb threats. If we were to show all of the bomb threats, which is the most common terrorist activity, 99 percent of this pie chart would be bomb threats, and the other 1 percent would be all of the other things. There are hundreds and hundreds of bomb threats, occurring constantly.

To briefly review the study that we did—I regularly duck behind the podium here, it’s a security measure (laughter). We thought that it was essential that we have a better understanding of the threat and of the security measures. And, really, the intent was to distill lessons learned and to identify the best practices put into place by outfits that had more experience than we in the United States had in dealing with terrorist attacks. So we looked at the incidents in Tokyo; we looked at the terrorist campaign in Paris subways; we looked at the long-running terrorist campaign by the IRA against British transport; we looked at the derailing of Amtrak. We included New York simply because of the size and complexity of its system, and because it did deal with a number of episodes— the shooting on the Long Island railroad, some bomb extortion plots that New York dealt with, some near misses. That gave us a rich lode to look at. And we looked at Atlanta because of the very special precautions and events connected with the Olympics.

And then we had additional information. We looked at some domestic systems. We had some additional surveys of transit systems. And that enabled us to come up with a good overall view. We tried to look at a lot of different things. We were very interested in threat perception, threat assessment. We looked at security organizations. We looked at security through environmental design, a very important area. And here, I want to make one point on this. I mentioned the difference between surface transportation and aviation security. If we think of the things that we can do, beginning with design, to deter and to prevent, and then move all the way over to those things that we do effectively to respond, we find an interesting difference in aviation security. And the difference is that in aviation security we’re dealing primarily with things to deter and prevent. There are some things that we can do with design at the airports, but with the design of the aircraft itself, there’s not a lot that you can do if an aircraft is sabotaged. There are some more defenses you can put in place, but the bulk of aviation security is in the deterrence and prevention of terrorism. When we go into surface transportation, the difficulties of security push us in the direction of what we can do in terms of design—design of the vehicles, design of the coaches, design of the stations—to improve the security environment, to mitigate casualties. And then we slide all the way to the other end of the spectrum. In aviation, when a plane crashes, there’s not a lot you can do to mitigate casualties; you’re essentially picking up bodies. But in surface transportation, there’s a lot we can do with crisis management and with rapid analysis of things that can be done to mitigate casualties. I mean things that come into play—things that actually came into play on September 11th. Earlier in the year, we had an exercise at MTI headquarters, a crisis management exercise involving a simulated terrorist attack. In that terrorist attack, the hypothetical scenario took place at Grand Central Station. We went through the whole day in the exercise, and one of the lessons learned—and I’m sure all of you understand this—is that the culture of transportation systems is never to shut down, always to keep people moving, to keep the system going. Therefore, shutdown decisions often have to be made all the way at the top; it’s a major decision to shut down. And one of the lessons learned in our exercise was that there are going to be moments of great uncertainty and potential danger, when in fact the safest thing we can do is shut down the system. And we may have to think about empowering some people down the line to make that decision. On September 11th, the people did the right thing and the system was shut down. I haven’t been able to get back and talk to the MTI people to see exactly what took place there, so I don’t know if the shutdown was a result of the game or other planning or what. But the fact is, the right decision was made and more people were not put in harm’s way. In the case of the Sarin attack in Tokyo, one of the problems was diagnosing what the hell was going on. People were getting off trains and they were sick. But the trains kept running. And in one case, one of the trains ran all the way to the end of the line, reversed, came back—carrying bags of Sarin—got to the end of the line again, and reversed and came back a third time, an hour and a half later, before it shut down. And of course, it was causing people to be exposed all along the line. So, the importance of diagnosis and crisis response—and we're going to hear more about that this morning—is critical in this area. It’s part of the security program.

We wanted to talk about augmentations of security. We talked about emergency response, including evacuation plans. We talked about the issue of the degree of public involvement: Is it useful to have public involvement? It’s not useful to have public involvement if you don’t have a responsive staff. And I saw this happen recently at an airport. All the people who heard the admonition, "Don’t leave your luggage unattended; please report any suspicious object to the attendant," watched a bag that somebody had completely left sit there for 20 minutes. I watched a person get up, go up to the counter, and say, "That bag has been sitting there for 20 minutes," and the person behind the counter said, "I don’t have time for that." The lesson is, don’t involve the public unless you have a responsive staff. You'll just tick them off and turn them off. And that’s not going to help a lot.

Anyway, let me just go back through a couple of things that are in the volumes. We won’t have time for everything, so I just want to open up and do a little previewing. The IRA terrorist campaign was especially interesting to us because of its length, 25 years. By the way, there is another point to be made here: On September 11th, there was a fundamental change in America’s psychology. We are now all British; we are now all Israelis; we are now living with terrorism as a potential threat, as a daily issue. It’s an issue even in making everyday decisions, and this may be an overreaction, but it is the state of high anxiety in which we are living. People are deciding whether to go to shopping malls or sporting events, or whether to take the car or take the train, and these decisions now have an additional ingredient that we didn’t have before September 11th, and that is security. Security has become a criterion in every decision we are making about our ordinary lives. That is something that other societies have lived with for years, and it is now part of our society.

The campaign by the IRA didn’t kill a lot of people. Only 17 people were killed in the 25-year campaign. It wasn’t about killing as much as it was about disruption. Those terrorist objectives, by the way, lead to the two objectives of surface transportation security: paramount is number one, to protect lives; number two is to minimize disruption. To come up with the right mixtures of measures and responses to respond quickly and protect lives and make the right decisions in bomb threats, bombings, things of that sort, and at the same time minimize the disruption is the real challenge here. That’s the trick.

I’m just going to run through some of the overall lessons learned very quickly, and not go through all of them. We’ll have time to talk more about this during the Q and A. Some of the lessons I have touched on already. First, effective security includes not only the deterrent preventive measures, but anything we can do to mitigate casualties up front and anything we can do to respond quickly. Crisis management is essential. The threat is real. Here’s a real problem now, and you have this problem right here in this room. You, as the operators, as the managers of the systems, have in the last six weeks become your own security directors. The security decisions in every enterprise in the United States have ascended from the security directors on up to the heads of the organizations. Whether we’re talking about multinationals making decisions about evacuating people or about transportation, those decisions are being made at a high level and in an environment of great uncertainty.

I touched on this already: Incorporating things that can be done to mitigate in design and construction is an extremely important thing. That’s not something that can be done immediately, but it can be done as systems are modified, as changes are made, as new systems are built. That becomes increasingly important.

In any crisis, communication is the first thing to go wrong. I can tell you this as an old soldier. The thing that always happens is that you can’t communicate. The communications are disrupted, they go down, they get screwed up, the frequencies are wrong, people don’t get the message. And that’s where you get nailed. By the way, as a practical measure, that’s also where you get nailed in the liability litigation that comes along later. That is going to be the big litigation issue at the World Trade Center. Whether the people who were told to go downstairs at Tower 2 and then told to go back upstairs in Tower 2 were misinformed because of a communications problem. Obviously, the situation was made more difficult on September 11th by the fact that the first plane just happened to—wasn’t designed to—hit precisely the floor in Tower 1 where World Trade Center Management was located. So management of the World Trade Center was wiped out in the first instant of the attack on September 11th, and that made coordination and communication extremely difficult.

You’ll hear more about crisis management simulations and training later on. But constant training, including simulation and field exercises, is extremely important. Another thing to emphasize here is the importance of closed circuit TV. By the way, again, I see some of you scribbling notes. This is all in the volume, and also if you’d like to give me your business card, I’ll be happy to make available copies of the slides. So you can have all of this material.

We’ve talked about this already: involving the public. It’s extremely important.

And finally, I’ll emphasize it again: good communication, good communication.

Let me just end here with a couple of comments about some things that can be done very quickly. I was asked this specific question: "Gee, a lot of this stuff involves installation of closed circuit TV and things. What can we do right now? What can we do tomorrow?" I’m going to name some things, and I suspect a lot of them are things you already have done. But let me run through them anyway.

Number one: Review the threat with local and national authorities. Take a good look at a threat review of your system.

Number two: Review the security plan. A lot of people have security plans that sit on shelves. I cannot imagine any entity not having reviewed its security plans in the past six weeks. But if you haven’t, that’s something you have to do right away.

Number three: Review and rehearse the immediate-response procedures for bomb threats, suspicious objects, mysterious substances, sudden outbreaks of visible illness, emergency evacuation. Go through those. By the way, none of these measures that I am recommending cost a single cent. They are things that can be done right away.

Look at the premises, keep the premises clean. Go after the obvious hiding places.

Check the position of simple, pedestrian things—the trash containers and things of this sort. A lot of this advice is in the volume. And that is something you can do very, very quickly.

Increase the frequency of security patrols.

Ensure the adequacy and awareness of crisis management plans. In most cases, you will be responding. You won’t be preventing. You will be responding.

Enlist the public in surveillance, but only if the transportation system staff is prepared to be responsive.

And, finally, instill a security mindset throughout the staff. Security now is no longer the responsibility of the security director alone. Security is the responsibility of everyone. Everyone from the citizen who is a passenger to the train driver, to the bus driver, to the conductor, to the stationmaster, to the custodial crew. Security is everybody’s business, and everybody has to have a security mindset.

As I say, we’ll have a chance to go over some of these in the Q and A, and we can talk about them later. But this—with all of its breathtaking generalizations—is a quick overview of the research. Thank you very much. (Applause)

ROD DIRIDON:

What Brian and the team are doing is kind of giving you the hor d’ourves in order to prepare you for the meal. And the meal really will come during your question and answer period. It also is to some extent, presented in the published books, which are out in the foyer, which many of you have picked up. But as you can imagine, some of the more important information could not be printed in those books, because we don't want it to become a how to do it book for the bad guys. So, your question and answer period is the most important part of this day’s session. And we’re going to protect as much time for that as possible.

I should also mention that Brian’s team has already launched into the next study, which is going to be a case study of what happened on September 11th. And that will be digested and published within the year, in order to have that information available for you to use in the future.

We’ve also been asked to do a couple of additional symposia. We’ll have to figure out exactly how that works, but some of the folks down in Southern California, and in the state of Washington, would like us to do a more geographically-focused gathering of this type, with more security-oriented individuals, rather than the director-level folks who are here today.

ROD DIRIDON:

… is also a professional public opinion research person who has done national as well as local public opinion research surveys that have been published.

Dr. Larry Gerston…

(Applause)

LARRY GERSTON:

Thank you, Rod.

My job is to kind of put this whole thing into context as a public policy issue. Although, for all of us, it’s very private. I think we all now sense a violation that we never felt before. And as Brian said, these things were always of someone hypothetical. And now they’re real. And as they become real, and they become part of our lives, not only today but tomorrow and next month, next year, who knows for how long, they of course impact the public policy process. That’s important to you and to me and to all the various agencies out there, because the agencies with which you work, and where you work, are going to be impacted in ways that we couldn’t even imagine seven weeks ago. So that’s why we take a moment or two to look at this in the context of a public policy issue.

I’d like to tell people that public policy making is something like a three-act play. Act 1 concerns the crisis, the crisis that precipitates some kind of call for action. Something out there disturbs the political equilibrium. Something destroys the status quo that has been so difficult to develop. And the satisfaction, if you will, creates some kind of compelling demand for change. Lots of times, these demands for change go nowhere, because the demands are not sufficient enough. Not enough people are upset enough. The system is not dismembered sufficiently, if you will, that anything is really [Inaudible]. So we walk around with a lot of complaints and grouches about this and that. But often times, things just stay as they have always been. We know this.

But, when crisis occurs, all bets are off. Everything is off the table. And it really gets us thinking and moving really quickly.

Act 2 of this three-act play, will be the policies, or as we say, the action steps that are taken to deal with this crisis that has just rearranged all the things in our lives. There will be a search somehow for consensus, or agreement, for some sort of new status quo, new equilibrium. There will be attempts to address the issues, whatever they might be. In this case, we know what it is. And these attempts to address them will hardly be antiseptic or neutral, because it means putting new resources in to work. It means taking out old things. It means rearranging the political system.

Act 3 is the reaction to the policies from the public, from the interest groups, from the policy makers, and in this case, from the rest of the world, other nations if you will. We go through intensive evaluation after the implementation. We then look at new inputs, new demands for change, because things that we’ve done really weren’t that right, or need to be improved. Now, that’s real quick. Believe me, there are books written about all this stuff. I’ve just given it to you in about 90 seconds. We are just now at the beginning stages if you will of Act 2.

Now this consensus was real easy to get in the beginning. I would suggest that we’re beginning to see frayed edges, if you will, as each day passes by. Internationally, there are some people who say we are doing too much. There are others, just as many, who are saying we’ve not done enough.

Domestically, we’re really beginning to see our psyche, if you will, wear. A new Newsweek poll that comes out, I think, today shows—in terms of President Bush’s management of the issue domestically, the public supports him by a 48 percent to 45 percent margin. Now when is the last time in the last seven weeks you saw a public divided so closely on any issue related to terrorism? But we are beginning to see some of those issues [Inaudible] as we ourselves become so anxious without any sense of closure on this, either internationally or nationally, particularly with the anthrax issues.

Which leads us to a quick discussion about the problem responding to issues such as terrorism. This is not your normal, everyday, public policy issue. This is deciding whether there are going to be roads. This is deciding whether we’re going to build new schools. This isn’t deciding whether we’re going to do this instead of that. We have probably three critical issues that are impacting us and the work we do here, as well as the rest of the nation.

First of all, this question of information. Brian talked about this earlier. Sometimes, we see people talking in Washington right here, saying so many different things on the same topic on the same day. And at first, of course, we are very frustrated by that. Why can’t they get their story straight? They can’t get their story straight because they don’t know much more than we do in many instances. That’s not suggesting that there are things that they don’t know that they don’t tell us of course. But we don’t know, in many respects, internationally, how wide spread this Al-Qaida network is. And all of its affiliates. We have some pretty good ideas. We don’t know how solid this coalition is internationally. What with the statements taking place from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Indonesia. Malaysia, and a cast of thousands, who would say, "We’re with you on one hand, while not entirely on the other." Those who have this whole oil cart out there that is a terrible problem for the United States. 70 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves in the Middle East. The U.S. now imports about 60 percent of its oil, which is nearly double, what we were importing during the Arab oil boycott. Let that sink in for a second and you begin to understand just how critical it is that we have some kind of understanding with folks in the Middle East. But yet, on the other hand, how much should they have to say about what we’re going to do. And that is a fact of life that many of us don’t like to think about.

So, the first one is the lack of information out there, the great uncertainty.

The second issue we have to deal with in responding to this terrorism problem has to do with the artificial consensus at home. Now I say artificial because the consensus of course initially was brought about by the threats to the system, the attacks on the system. The September 11th events will be indelibly placed in our minds forever. They destroyed our sense of invulnerability. Suddenly, what we talked about, the hypothetical Brian talked about, was real. The postal system, anthrax, attacks within… The Supreme Court across the street closed, not open for business. Oh yes, the Justices have moved some place else, but… that’s quite a symbolic statement as well as a substantive one. What’s next? First the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, then the postal system. What’s next? As we try to cope with what’s next, the consensus becomes more and more difficult to keep together. Because we don’t really know what to do about it. There’s of course a certain panic by the citizens, by the policy makers. And the panic is designed to deal with things, but we’re trying to deal with things on so many levels that it’s got to be hard to deal with them all at once.

Related to that is a third problem. And that’s the civil liberties issues. We don’t like to think about civil liberties issues when we’re trying to get the bad guys. If we get the bad guys, these problems may go away. And with that in mind, the Attorney General and the state police organizations have just been given new powers—wire tapes, electronic surveillance, Internet, e-mails, Internet use, detentions, search warrants. Sounds pretty good. Local police will have new lower thresholds for searching houses and business records. Well this sounds good too, if we’re going to get the bad guys. The problem we all know is, sometimes, some of the good guys get swept up before the bad guys. Sometimes some people who had nothing to do with anything suddenly find themselves in a mess. It’s happened before in calm times—the Wen Ho Lees, the Richard Jewels, others out there. You could only begin to imagine what happens now. So some have suggested that this may be overkill. Others say it’s not enough. Either way, it’s another crack in this unity pavement.

That leads us to a big issue, and that is—something I think rather important to all of us here—the matter of paying for it, now and later. Imagine if you will, in seven weeks, this country has or is on the verge of committing $200 billion. Let that sink in, $200 billion to deal with the threats of terrorism and of course the aftermath of the September 11th events. $20 billion for New York. $34 billion more, by the way, requested by Governor Pataki. $20 billion for anti-terrorism efforts. $15 billion for the airline bailout. $31 billion for unemployment worker assistance programs. As much as $100 billion—they’re still dotting the "I’s and crossing the "T’s", for tax cuts and incentives. And there are many more billions of dollars out there that need to be spent.

[Inaudible] second wave of responses even closer to home, at the state and local levels, airport safety. And I would imagine that Secretary Mineta will talk about this today at lunch. I am looking forward to hearing about that. The baggage inspectors and scanners, under whose jurisdiction? If left to the states and local entities, will it be the airlines? Well, we know what has happened there. It hasn’t exactly worked too swell. Will it be the airports? Will it be the state and local governments? Whose pockets will the dollars come from in order to pay for these? And if it’s yours, the question is, what else will you have to give up in order to pay for these things because they’re needed now?

States and local governments, I might add, you know this already, are grappling with the worst economy in a decade. And unlike the Federal government who could write those checks and add them on to the national debt, or pay for them in the distant future, we have to balance our budgets now. It’s required by state and local constitutions. So, we had recession problems before this mess. You can only imagine what’s going to happen now.

In California, my state, the state missed income projections the first quarter of this fiscal year by $1.1 billion. We do things big in California. $1.1 billion— that’s the first quarter, folks. Okay? There’s more to come. Now, that’s from July 1 through September 30. Now you know September 11th was near the end of that quarter. So you can’t blame all that on the September 11th tragedies. But we can say that the recession was coming anyway. So, paying for these things, locally, on top of everything else, could be a real mess. And what about other public safety concerns, some of which Brian talked about earlier? Who or what levels of government will be responsible for the protection of train stations, highway systems. Also the major public buildings, anti-terrorism facilities for diagnosing all these things that we normally send to these labs far away who no longer can deal with it because they are so overwhelmed.

At the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting last week, they projected that cities alone will need and extra $1.5 billion in the next year to maintain security at current levels. Where are we going to get that money from? Boston right now is spending $100,000 per week in the aftermath of the September 11th events, beyond what they’d anticipated spending, and Baltimore is averaging $350,000 a week. Those printing presses break down real quick. They break down real quick because there is no money to spend, it’s got to come from somewhere. The cost of fully protecting American society will not only be staggering, they will change the way we live. These are the public policy issues that are now right in front of us, on our plate. These are the ones that you have to deal with every day. And as you attempt to deal with them, you will find them more, not less, difficult with respect to the resources you have and the challenges with which to carry them out. It’s a tough battle. It’s only beginning.

Thank you.

(Applause)

ROD DIRIDON:

We’re a little ahead of schedule and that’s good. Let’s take about a ten minute break while Dr. Winslow sets her program up, and make sure you’re back here by let’s say 10:20, no later please, and we’ll go on with the program.

(Break)

To protect time for your questions and answers, we’re going to have to have you sit now, please.

While we’re settling, let me take a moment. When we break for lunch at 11:30, you’ll all need to take your parcels with you to lunch. Sorry about the inconvenience, but if you don’t, the Secret Service that comes in for preparation for Secretary Mineta will do to your parcels what they do to parcels at the airport, which you’d rather not have done to your parcel. So please take any kind of package with you. If it’s just papers, leave them in the cigar. But if you have a parcel, briefcase, file of any kind, take them with you to lunch and bring them back. Otherwise you may lose them.

Also, in this area up front, the media is going to set up, so take everything with you, the papers, everything, because the chairs are not going to be there when you come back. I will set up some additional chairs because we are pretty full, in order to accommodate everyone that might be sitting up front that won’t be able to do so later.

We seem to be kind of re-gathered. Let me introduce now our final presenter from the Mineta Institute team. Her name is Dr. Frances Edwards-Winslow. Her information is in your file so I’m not going to go into an awful lot of detail, except to note that she is recognized nationally and certainly throughout California as a top expert in disaster response, emergency response planning, programming, and exercises. She’s the author of several books. She is the director of Emergency Preparedness of the City of San Jose, the headquarters and the center city of Silicon Valley.

I’d like to say we planned this, but sometimes things just happen nicely. This is yesterday’s New York Times, and on page B8 is a background statement on her and her wonderful plan in the City of San Jose, which is recognized nationally as one of the best in the nation.

So, please welcome Dr. Frances Edwards-Winslow.

FRANCES EDWARDS-WINSLOW:

It’s a pleasure to be here with you this morning. And now that you’ve been stimulated to be interested in emergency preparedness, I hope you’ll find some of the material I have to share with you helpful, as you go back and think about how you’re going to deal with the things that you just heard Brian describe as possible in your system, and some of the political difficulties that Larry described as part of the inevitable outcome of trying to change. When I speak about emergency preparedness, I do it in memory of two of my friends, Ray Downey and Jack Fanning, chief officers from the New York City Fire Department who gave their lives on September 11th. They were my colleagues and I credit them with a great deal of the learning that I’ve done over the past few years. In emergency management, we all learn from each other. And I hope that when you leave here today, you’ll begin that network of friendships and relationships that leads to good learning.

Well, emergency response is critical. When one of these events has occurred, your ability to respond quickly and effectively is what will save lives, lessen the injuries, and lessen the property damage. And since many of you are involved with very expensive infrastructure, that’s a very important consideration for you as well.

It’s also critical for restoring the public trust. Your ability to manage an event, to appear to the public to be managing an event, is really a very important part of fighting terrorism. Because remember that terrorism is about terror. And as Brian pointed out earlier, it’s not so much about killing people as it is scaring them. If it appears that the government agencies that are supposed to be there to protect us have no idea what they’re doing, then that's a terrorist’s greatest triumph. So the best way that you can fight at your level, is to become prepared, to be organized, and to be available to the public when they are feeling frightened. Because that will restore their faith in the government and our country as a society. Of course, it’s also crucial to the ability to resume service. The longer it takes you to respond and to begin recovery, the longer it is before you’re back in business. And many of you, after all, are businesses. You may be subsidized, but you have a responsibility to the Board and to the people that use your system, to try to keep your costs reasonable, to try to keep your processes running appropriately. And so resuming service is very important. Financial recovery, of course, is greatly enhanced. The quicker you can respond, the quicker you can get your facilities running again. But that effective response is based on two things, planning and preparedness.

First of all, emergency response has to be based on written plans. It’s no use to think that when the time comes, you’ll figure it out, because, believe me, you won’t. It’s also important, after you’ve written those plans, to test them in full scale exercises. Because, the people actually come together and find out if they can work together. Why do I say "if"? Because police departments, fire departments and ambulance services are all on different frequencies in the United States today. And so, they come to the same event and try to work together. But it’s interesting, we’re almost down to cans and strings at some events, trying to get them to communicate with each other.

Also, we use different nomenclature from one profession to another. And the ability to come to some common terms and some pre-made arrangements on how you’re going to manage the event will be tremendously helpful when the day comes that you’re the one with the emergency.

In San Jose, we were fortunate enough to be selected in 1997 as one of the first twenty-seven cities in the United States to participate in the domestic preparedness program, sponsored by Senators Nunn, Luger, and Dominici. And that led to the creation of a metropolitan medical task force, which involves law enforcement, fire personnel, emergency medical services at the field level, emergency medical transportation, physicians and nurses at the emergency rooms, definitive care at the hospital, clinicians and physicians who may have patients walk in, like they did after the Sarin attack. Slightly contaminated, but contaminated enough to close their facilities. We also involve the Office of Emergency Services staff in helping to coordinate and manage these events.

The important thing about the creation of the team, and ultimately, the Metropolitan Medical Response System, was just this ability to have a common plan, common nomenclature, and a known plan for initiating the response. We don’t have every single step that we would ever take written down. But what we do have is a plan for how we will begin, and how we will make decisions as we go along in a joint environment. We recognize, also, that if it is in fact a terrorist event, we will not be managing alone. Because the FBI is the crisis management agency for the government, and they will be joining us in forming a joint command system. And so we try to form our plan in a way that allows that joint command to be established as readily as possible, while we still continue our work at the local level, and they begin their work at the Federal level.

As was mentioned earlier, communications really are the key. It’s the plan that ties together all of the response levels. It’s not only the radios and how police, fire, and emergency medical services are going to speak among each other during the event. It’s also—how are the people in the field going to let the people in the emergency operations center know what they need? What logistics support, what man power, what other kinds of political support are going to be important to them? And so, in California, we have established a system that ties us together from the city to the operational area at the county level; from there to the state; and finally, at the request of our governor, to federal resources that can become available during a declaration, through FEMA.

All hazards emergency preparedness should be the goal of every transportation agency in the United States. Because it’s not just about terrorism and crime. Right now, after September 11th, it’s probably not too hard a sell to your board the idea that you need to get ready for a potential terrorist event against your facilities. But I can tell you as somebody who has worked in this field for 18 years, that these events ebb and flow. After the Loma Prieta earthquake, for six months, I could have almost anything I wanted. And then that was the end. And when the cutbacks came and the economy got bad in 1993, they took my analysts, they took part of my secretary’s time. Because, it was no longer perceived as important. So in three or four years, the interest in a single type of potential event will go away.

So your goal is to make it clear that the planning that you’re doing and the training that you’re doing is not a single focus, but it’s focused on all of the kinds of things that potentially can happen; and, unfortunately do happen somewhere almost everyday. You do this by beginning with a good threat analysis and risk assessment. What are the natural hazards in your area? Are you subjected to snowstorms and ice storms which can be very disruptive to surface transportation? What about power outages? What about human caused hazards like young people with nothing better to do going out and tampering with your line? What about angry patrons who engage in hostile behavior on your facilities and cause disruption to your patrons and your operators? You need to then evaluate—what are the risks of these occurrences in each part of your service area? In San Jose for example, we have some parts of the community that are flood prone and others that are not. So we need to identify which lines need to have a separate plan. We have a light rail system that runs through an area that can flood. So for example, we have to have a plan in place to create a bus bridge with very little notice, because, we’re at the bottom of the valley so the flooding comes to us at unusual and often very unexpected times.

Also the impacts for each service area are very different. In some places, like with the BART system in the Bay Area, we’re very dependent on that system to get people moved to work everyday. And when BART closes down, the ability to drive a car in the Bay Area changes dramatically. On the other hand, there are some places where public transportation is more of a "nice to have." And if a person can’t take a bus from home to their commute point, they can still drive their car, park at a park and ride and pick up their bus. And so the criticality of the different nodes in your system is an important part of your planning.

The second thing that I really want to emphasize is that a good emergency plan can only be written by a committee. No one person can write a good emergency plan, because, that person has only one perspective—their own. They may have a lot of experience and their perspective may be very broad. But it’s tremendously important for the representatives of all areas to be at the table, not only for the expertise that they bring, but in some ways, more importantly, for the buy-in that they provide. If they were there participating and their agency is represented, when their plan is finished, they feel ownership. It’s their plan too. And they’ll work with you very hard to make it successful. If it’s something that is wished on them from out of the sky, they could sabotage it quicker than you can figure out how to fix it.

It’s very important to remember your employee unions are an important part of your emergency planning process. If you don’t include them from the beginning, they’ll bring grievances on basis of things like—change of working conditions, new liabilities and changes in procedures—that they’ll want to negotiate and get more money for. On the other hand, if you can have the employee representatives with you as partners from the beginning, they will be very helpful in selling their unions on the notion that this is actually a lot about employee safety. It’s about making their members competent and capable and ready to save their own lives and to help their passengers.

Visible and active support from the top management of your organization is essential. You need to have the board and the executive management understand why you are engaging in the program. And have them visibly present at times when the plan is discussed and supported. It’s nice if they give you money. You won’t get far without it. But without their personal involvement, you’ll never sell the program.

Planning has to be done with partners. It needs to coordinate across the entire spectrum of transportation for your community. First of all, you have to consider all the different governments whose line your service passes through. For example, if you have a facility that crosses city boundaries, like we do in Santa Clara County, you need to know what kind of support to expect from the different police agencies as you go through their communities. If somebody creates an assault on a bus in a particular town, is that police department going to be willing to come and help you deal with the problem? Or are they going to defer back to the Sheriff? Because in our county, the Valley Transit Agency does have a contract with the Sheriff’s Department. Those kinds of issues need to be worked out ahead of time. What about if somebody gets sick on the bus? Who is going to respond to that passenger? Will it be the fire department from the jurisdiction where the person gets sick? Or will they expect the county fire department to come and respond? Issues like that need to be worked out ahead of time. And you should have at least a letter of understanding so that you can train your drivers and personnel and especially your dispatchers, on how to handle requests for service so that they’re done as quickly as possible.

Remember utility companies are important partners. For some of your systems, you’re relying on power to make them run. But the water systems are important too. Because if they’re going to be working on the streets or if they’re anticipating flooding, those are things that you’d like to know ahead of time so that you can plan and prepare.

Also the communication systems that are along your route are important to you. How are your bus radios organized? Do your people use cell phones and how reliable are they? Where are the nodes? What kind of problems can occur to them?

Area wide organizations are also very important partners. In the Bay Area, we have a group called the Association of Bay Area Governments. And I know here in the metro Washington area, you do have an association of governments as well. ABAG has done many studies on transportation related issues, which are powerful tools for our transportation agencies, when they go back to their boards and say, "We need to spend more money on planning, or on different equipment, or on better communications." We did a study recently at ABAG of what would happen in a Hayward fault earthquake. And we found out that over 1400 road segments would be damaged too badly to be used, and that the repairs could take up to six months. Imagine the impact that would have on your transportation system, on the buses having to be rerouted. Perhaps the necessity of putting on many more computer rail cars because that might be the only method to get in and out of some areas.

We also have a Metropolitan Transportation Commission, and I know many of you do in other places as well, that helps coordinate the work of all of the transit agencies. And one of the most important things that our group does is not only assist with emergency planning, but sponsor an annual drill so that all of these wonderful plans can actually be regularly tested. And every time you do a drill, you learn a new lesson that helps you improve your plan. So, it’s a continuous improvement process.

And now, unfortunately, in today’s environment, I have to add another group which is very important to me, and that’s the terrorism working group. In most areas of the United States today, the FBI has sponsored a terrorism working group. It normally includes law enforcement, fire, office of emergency services, and emergency medical services. Make sure that your law enforcement agency, connected to your transportation system, is an equal and active partner in that law enforcement organization. Don’t think that your local police departments are a proxy for you. Their issues are different than yours. You have the customer in a different position. They’re looking at a resident. You’re looking at somebody who pays the fare, who depends on you to get to work. Be represented there, and learn from the FBI what kinds of things are a concern.

Don’t forget that any piece of the transportation system is really only as good as the rest of the transportation system. If one piece breaks down, the others are either overloaded or unable to continue their function. So when we look at our planning, we try to look at all the interconnected pieces of our service area, and their dependencies on each other. For example, in the Bay Area, we have bus, light rail, and para-transit that carry people from very close to their home to work. But we also have commuter rail, like CalTrain and Amtrak, that take people from farther away. And inter-city bus services, like Greyhound. We also of course have three airports in the Bay Area. We have the Port of Oakland, which is a very large organization that has container ships coming in and out. We also we have ferries which run back and forth across the Bay. We have bridges and tunnels. And in the immediate area of our part of the transportation network, our tunnels are going through mountains rather than underwater. We also have freeways. And in some parts of California, we have toll roads. If any piece of this infrastructure breaks down, it has a tremendous and direct impact on the others. And if you doubt that, look at what happened to Greyhound and Amtrak when the FAA grounded the aircraft. Look at what happened to the taxi drivers who used to be part of the transit system at the airports, and how difficult it was to get them re-oriented to the Amtrak station. We have a little better plan now for doing that.

You need to review the multifunctional plans that already exist in the jurisdictions that are your partners. Every city has an emergency operations plan. I hope that the other towns and communities do as well. In California, they’re all based on the incident command system. And when we bring it into the EOC, we call it SEMS, the Standardized Emergency Management System.

We also have hazardous materials response plans in place, and I’m sure that’s true of most of your communities as well. And of course, every fire department and every police department has standard operating procedures for how they will handle various events. Many of them can affect your transportation systems. If, for example, the police department’s standard response to a barricaded hostage, as it is in my community, is to draw a perimeter of about a thousand feet, and stop the passage of transportation of all types, that can affect our bus lines. That can affect our light rail. We need to know those things ahead of time.

Also, look at the volunteer resources in your community. In San Jose, we have a group, Community Emergency Response Team, we call it San Jose Prepared. But these groups are sponsored by FEMA and exist all over the United States, anywhere a public agency has chosen to offer training and sponsor the groups. Very important link for us right into neighborhoods. And, they enable us to try to pass information quickly, through a neighborhood. If bus service is going to be disrupted, we can use their phone tree to warn people and try to organize car pools, instead of putting hundreds of different cars, with one person in them, on the street to replace those few buses.

We also have an amateur radio program that is very active in California. And they are an important link for us. They not only shadow our police and fire command staff to provide an extra method of transmitting logistical information to save the tactical channels. But they also link us back to that amateur citizen group, the CERT team, in each neighborhood.

In California, we have Master Mutual Aid agreements for police and fire. And I think that’s true in many states in the United States. And those should be factored into your planning.

We also have multiple casualty incident plans at the field level that tie together a communications system from the field to the hospital providers to the ambulance network system. So that when a patient comes from an accident scene, they go to the hospital that is ready to receive them, that has an open bed, and that has properly trained personnel. That’s an important part of your planning too, because if an accident happens on your system, the multiple casualty incident plan will be implemented.

In our county, we also have a disaster medical health plan, describing the kinds of services that can be provided and the kind of mutual aid that we would use to do yet a better job. You need to know how that works.

And unfortunately, today, you also need, if you’re in a metropolitan area, to coordinate with your metropolitan medical task force, to find out what kind of plan they have for you. In my plan, for example, the Valley Transit Authority is not only a transportation agency, they’re also a shelter agency. And they’ve been a shelter for me several times in wild land interface fires, because a bus has air conditioning and it has heat. And if we have people who are out of their homes, in the time it takes us to open a high school or another shelter, we can have valley transit buses delivered right to the area where people have a need. They can get in and out of the elements. And in the bus, we can begin to provide triage services. We can begin to provide psychological care. And we can move a busload of people who are only mildly injured, to a hospital to begin their care. So, think of yourself as part of this system, not just a recipient of services.

It’s important that you have a written plan. We really urge you to use the Incident Command System Model. It’s taught at the National Fire Academy. It’s used by most fire departments across the United States today.

One of the most important parts of your plan is the accountability or chain of command section. And remember, every element of your organization plays a role. Your board and executive management make policies. Your management staff creates a strategy. And your field staff are the tactical responders. If those pieces are not tied together, chaos will ensue.

Be sure you have a management structure that is well understood and clearly delineated and practiced. Be prepared for continuity of government. What will you do if the people that you expected to be there are not there? Who are our mutual aid partners from whom you could draw people to come and provide leadership? And remember that your vital records require off site storage. Each of your organizations has information about your personnel, about the benefits that they’ve provided, survivor benefits for families. In New York City, they provided one stop shopping facilities for victim’s families. So that instead of having to go from place to place, they could go to one location and receive help from the various government agencies and also private insurance companies. Records like that are really important when you have an accident and you have a lot of people involved. You need to have the ability to get your records quickly to a scene, and begin to provide assistance.

You need an emergency operations center. It can be as beautiful as the one that I am fortunate enough to work out of, that is set up all the time. Or it can be as simple as a training room with a box of phones in the corner and some good instructions on how to get set up with your laptop computers. But you need to have a facility set aside that’s identified within your organization, and where you practice working together on response.

Be sure your communications infrastructure ties together that emergency information center, the field, and your community. And, that’s mostly done through your trained, public information staff. It’s worth the time and the money to send a few people for special training in how to deal with the media. At the break, I had the chance to see for the first time the article from the New York Times, the paper of record for the United States. And I found five mistakes.

So be sure that you have people that know how to work with the media, who are comfortable with them, and who practice with them. And when you do your exercises, invite the media. Let them come and be a player. Interview with them. Explain to them what you’re doing. It will heighten the public’s sense of security that you do care about them, that you are planning ahead of time. But, it will also help to educate the media.

In the summer of 1999, the Fred Friendly Seminars sponsored a couple of us to come back, and believe it or not, train the leaders of the media of the United States in some of the issues related to terrorism. And I became famous for getting up and telling them, "I don’t know a lot about what you do, but you don’t know anything at all about what I do. I’ve had to take 160 hours of classroom training to learn how to try to help you do your job. I wish you’d spend 8 hours trying to learn to help me do mine." The media really needs to become a partner.

Cyber safety is very important today. We’ve seen denial of service attacks. We’ve seen viruses and worms. Be prepared for your system to be attacked. If somebody wants to take down your transit system, think of how much automation you have today, and how quickly they could cause accidents if they could tamper with that automation. Have hot sites, cold sites; redundant safety controls; and, virus protection in place. It’s a great investment in safety.

Be sure that your logistics are prepared, that you have vendor lists and pre made contracts. Because after a disaster, you will not be the only one calling the engineering company or calling the contractor. Have some people that you work with on a regular basis who will consider you their number one customer.

Exercising—I talked about it through the talk—is very important. Tabletop exercises are a good way to introduce your training program. It’s not a test. It’s a learning experience. Expect your tabletop to yield improvements and changes, and try to do it every year. It can be done in a low-key environment, It’s a low stress exercise. It keeps people thinking about your preparedness level. And it helps you keep constantly up to date as systems or personnel change.

Functional exercises with your partners can be expensive, so join in existing annual drills. Most 