Essay On Responding To Terrorism

The city of Danville, Virginia is expecting a terrorist attack to occur in the near future due to Dominion Power dumping their waste water into the Dan River. Terrorist have given the city five days to have a response before the city endures a major attack. This emergency operations plan will include all aspects for the city of Danville, Virginia to carry out the various roles and responsibilities of government organizations and providing a connection to the local, state, federal, and private organizations, and resources to address during emergencies. The emergency operation plan will be taking steps and roles necessary to provide a well throughout response to ensure the safety and well-being of the Danville’s civilians. The safety and well-being of citizens is never more threatened than during disasters and attacks. The main goal of the emergency operations plan is to ensure that we limit the severity of the situation, having preparedness, responding quickly and firmly, and making sure recovery actions exist to the public to make sure their safety and well-being stays protected. This emergency plan will provide a guidance for the Danville’s departments with a general concept of potential emergency assignments before, during, and following an emergency but making sure it does not replace county or local emergency operations plans or procedures they may have already established. This plan wants to ensure that there is and will be consistency with the now current policies and

In the last two decades, the United States has experienced disastrous terrorist incidents. Including 9/11, the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and the 2015 San Bernardino shooting, these incidents have varied in the scale, location, weapon used but have all had the same goal; to harm Americans and put fear the minds of everyone else. Before September 11th, 2001, there had never been a large attack on the continental United States of America. Our first responders have new threats and must be put through rigorous trainings in order to try and minimize the risks.

Our country, the United States of America, has been shaken up by the current event that occurred Wednesday December 2, 2015. In our very own state, a shooting occurred in San Bernardino County. The massacre occurred in a holiday party where fourteen people were killed and twenty-one people were left wounded. The suspects behind this terror were a married muslim couple, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik who opened fired on their co-workers. However, they were soon killed in a gun battle with the police. In the article, “Obama Seeks to Calm Americans on Terror Threat, but Speech Underscores Challenges” by Michael A. Mamoli, it states that President Obama addressed the nation from the oval office stating that the shooting “… was an act of

The first of these frameworks is called the National Incident Management System (NIMS) which provides a template on how national, state, and local governments should work together. Within this system, there are instructions for the Multi-Agency Coordination system (MACs) whose primary function is to “coordinate activities above the field level and to prioritize the incident demands for critical or competing resources, thereby assisting the coordination of the operations in the field” (Homeland, 64, 2008). The next framework is the National Response Framework (NRF) describes how communities, tribes, states, the federal government, and nongovernmental agents apply these principles for a coordinated, effective national response. The NRF is designed to provide the ”structure and mechanisms for national-level policy and operational direction for incident management to ensure timely and effective Federal support to State, tribal, and local related activities” (Homeland, 12, 2008). And finally the last important national response structure is the All Hazards Approach to preparedness. This approach provides a comprehensive, all hazards, and risk based in approach to preparedness and includes the Emergency Operation Plans (EOP). These plans are for explaining who, what, where, and when and by what authority for emergencies, including before, during and after the

On september 11, 2001 there was an attack on America. Four airplanes were hijacked, two were crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City, the third crashed into the Pentagon in D.C. and the fourth got stopped by a passenger. It was the first terrorist attack on the U.S. soil. Thousands of lives were lost that day. This attach was the most devastating act of belligerence on U.S territory since the Civil War (Terrorism, 2011). This even had an enormous influence on America and its history. It led to numerous short and long term effects. On September 20, 2001, former president George W. Bush announced publicly that he declares “War on Terror”. After this announcement, our country has altered. To determine if an effect was

As stated in the discussion, the initial phase of an emergency response is assessed at the local level. Consequently, management of a dangerous condition in response to a terrorist incident or hazardous condition is contingent upon the state of preparedness of the respective local officials. The Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) should identify the criteria for what, how, and when resources are activated. Although the standards of operation are documented in the EOP, the notification process is time sensitive and must be executed accordingly. As such, the human element cannot be underestimated. Representatives at the local, state and federal level must be familiar with the expectations of the response and have a positive working relationship.

Terrorism response, like any issue concerning domestic politics and international affairs, can be faced analyzing either causes or effects. Terrorists are usually motivated by political beliefs. Even if terrorists can take advantage of other particular situations such as economic difficulties and religious beliefs, the main purposes are always political. That being said, the right response to terrorism is prevention. Solving the problem at the root cause is achievable through stable political regimes and open and functioning democracies. As long as terrorists do not need to resort to violence because they have other means to make their voices heard, they do not represent a threat anymore. Since this process might be quite long lasting, an

Criminals and terrorist share many similarities but it is the differences in motive that truly set them apart. Despite the motive of the terrorist it is the responsibility of those responding agencies to mitigate and respond to those incidents appropriately. It is also important for first responders to be mindful of the seven signs of terrorism, surveillance, elicitation, tests of security, acquiring supplies, suspicious persons, trial, and deployment (C2Tlearn, 2017) when responding to an incident; being sure to document, report, and call upon resources above their capabilities to aid in countering and responding to a terrorist event. Although local responding agencies have limited capabilities in countering terrorism, local agencies in conjunction with state and federal authorities can effectively counter and respond in the event of a terrorist attack.

Whenever a police department, fire department, public safety personnel, or any type government agency; whether private or non-private encounters a crisis mode, it can be extremely difficult to operate and properly direct their personnel without a plan. For example, if a small city/town encounters a violent mass shooting, bombing, or a terrorist’s attack and if the police or fire department has never trained for one; communication and direction can be brutal. One can never be ready for a mass casualty incident, however, agencies nearby can always prepare for one through practice, presentation, and most importantly; learning from past history. In addition, since September 11, 2001, according to Galea (2016) stated “9/11 changed everything:

The town should develop an emergency management plan in the event of weapons of mass destruction terrorist attack. Emergency management includes four basic phases: mitigation, response, recovery, and preparedness (Maras, 2013). First we will look at mitigation, in this process the focus is to lessen the effects of the emergency. Then maximize the effort to reduce potentials for future disasters. The second step, response, seeks to effectively respond to an emergency in order to save lives, protect property, and meet basic human needs (Maras, 2013). First responders are very critical at this point and their training will save lives in these types of situations. The people in the community will all work together to suruce the areas and provide

The constantly changing nature of terrorism mandates that Metropolis continues to press forward to develop a vision and strategy that defines their terrorism preparedness objectives. Employing insight and identifying eight risk areas, Metropolis has developed this terrorism incident preparedness plan. The intent of this document is to provide Metropolis guidance and cohesion to support agencies during a terrorist event using reactionary and resiliency planning. Moreover, the plan will consist of three parts. Part I will discuss four reactionary and four resiliency areas, Part II identifies impacted segments of the areas discussed in Part I, and Part III will provide detailed step-by-step

As a kid my father always told me great preparation makes success, in designing a preparedness plan for your agency or organization. First we must examine what it means to be prepare, this preparation geared more so to defense against the growing threat of terrorist. From a layered perspective, being prepared for a terrorist attack means taking individual responsibility for one’s own safety and security. This layer starts and gains life in the homes, at schools, at workplaces, and in communities, etc. The community component then connects with the service provider requirements of being prepared. This includes Law Enforcement, Emergency Services, Utilities, and local Government. Continuing up the chain is the State Government and then the Federal Government. All of these individual tiers have distinct responsibilities in being prepared for the next terrorist attack.

One of the most important concerns of community members is how they will evacuate in the event of a disaster. FEMA has developed the National Prevention Framework (NPF) that outlines the whole community approach to a disaster discovery of intelligence or information regarding an imminent threat to homeland and security. Although, communities have participated in some form of evacuation planning as part of emergency management, not many have been able to conduct a

The threat of terrorism is constantly growing and evolving. As such, our response to acts of terrorism must evolve with it. With the increased security posture at many of our larger cities with industries, municipal buildings, and other large venues that would be desirable terrorist targets, it is possible that extremists will turn to targeting smaller, less prepared targets such as state and local facilities. After the attacks on September 11th 2001, our nation has established the Department of Homeland Security as well as sections within other departments of the federal government tasked specifically with protecting the homeland from internal

Islam is the arab word for submission, it is the second most practiced religion world-wide but, in the western world it is mostly regarded as a constant source of debate and conflict. Islamist groups have been attributed to 48 out of the 50 most deadly terrorist attacks in the year 2017. This figure is especially concerning if we consider that all this attacks had at least 19 decease, and up to more than 250. But, while it is true that terrorism is a very present topic, we must take into account that there are around 1.8 billion Muslims in the world and the most active islamist terrorist organization (Islamic State) was estimated to be around 26.000 fighters (making it around 0.000015% of the total muslim population). When looking at any other type of data, this ridiculous percentage would be dismissed as an outcast. There seems to be no reason to consider these few individuals the “rule” but, if we consider they might be the ones actually following what their religion dictates, the exception becomes a seemingly acceptable justification for discrimination. With people killing people “in the name of God” and others preaching verses such as “O You who believe! Enter absolutely into peace (Islam). Do not follow in the footsteps of satan. He is an outright enemy to you.”- Holy Quran: 2, 208, many people have begun to ask themselves whether Islam is religion of peace. Whether Islamic based terrorism is a version, or a perversion of the Qur’an. Not many people, however, have