THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF 9/11:
A BRIEF REVIEW OF IMPACT
AND RESPONSE
Dr. James JF Forest
Director of Terrorism Studies
Combating Terrorism Center
U.S. Military Academy
West Point, NY
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The Terrorist Attacks of 9/11
Agenda:
1) The Events of 9/11
2) The Psychological Impact
3) The Economic Impact
4) The Response: Building Community Resilience
5) Recommendations and Conclusion
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DoD Disclaimer
Please Note:
The views expressed herein are those of the author and
do not purport to reflect the position of the United States
Military Academy, the Department of the Army, or the
U.S. Department of Defense.
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1. The Events of 9/11
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1. The Events of 9/11
On a beautiful, clear day in September . . .
• Four planes hijacked; three flown into office buildings in NYC and DC
• NYC attacks (2nd plane crash) shown on live television; American attention
riveted; other tv shows replaced by 9/11 coverage
• All airplanes grounded; schools closed; sports cancelled
• WTC towers collapse, shown on live television
• Close coverage of whereabouts of Pres. Bush, other national leaders
• Lots of commentary and questions; few informed answers; lots of emotion,
Congressional Representatives spontaneously singing patriotic songs on the
steps of Capitol Hill
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2. The Psychological Impact of 9/11
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2. The Psychological Impact
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
• Individuals who have been exposed to a traumatic event may experience at
least one recurrent symptom related to the event (such as intrusive,
repeated recollections or dreams of the event)
• Persistently avoids people, activities or places associated with the event
• Cannot recall important aspects of the trauma
• Shows disinterest in their usual daily activities and a sense of foreboding
about the future
• Hyper arousal (difficulty in falling or staying asleep, outbursts of anger, hyper
vigilance, an inability to concentrate, or exaggerated startle responses)
• May lead to significant impairment in social, occupational or other important
areas of the individual’s life
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2. The Psychological Impact
Common Themes in the Research on 9/11 Psychological Impact
• Living closer to the attack scene, direct personal loss, and children were
more likely to exhibit symptoms of PTSD
– Sadness was the most frequent reaction among New Yorkers, followed
by anxiety and fear
• Almost 20% of Americans across the country reported symptoms of distress
– constant news coverage, replays of video footage showing the second
plane hitting the World Trade Center, helped all Americans feel closer to
the event
• Americans did not withdraw from others
– Stress and uncertainty produces social behaviors: people seek out
others, perhaps to enhance social support, or to help to affirm one’s
cultural view of the world and the threat (Brandon & Silke)
• Increased participation in religious services, memorials, vigils
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9/11 Towers of Light Tribute
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9/11 Taps Vigil at West Point
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3. The Economic Impact of 9/11
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3. The Economic Impact
Confusion/Disagreement on Total Economic Impact
• NY City Economic Impact
– “Total Loss $83 billion”
(NYC partnership & Chamber of
Commerce: Nov 2001)
– “Total Cost $54 billion”
(NY Governor: Oct 2001)
– “WTC Replacement Cost &
Cleanup $25~29 billion”
(FEB NY: April 2002)
– “Total Cost $83 billion (quoting
NYCP-COC) but $67 billion covered
by Insurance
(US GAO: May 2002)
• NY State Jobs Lost
– “99,000 in 2001, 78,000 in 2002,
77,000 in 2003”
(NYS Senate Finance Committee:
DRI-WEFA: January 2002)
– “Resulted at peak loss of 78,200”
(DRI-WEFA: March 2002)
– “50,000 immediately, 70,000 in 4th
Quarter” “Much of this loss is likely
linked to WTC attack”
(FEB NY: April 2002)
• NY City Jobs Lost
– 108,500, 115,300, 105,200,
125,000, 84,000, 78,200,
129,000….
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3. The Economic Impact
Immediate and Short-Term Economic Impacts
• Financial Sector
• 40% of WTC casualties
• NYSE, NYME closed
• Aviation Sector
– planes grounded for a week or more
– 20% drop in passengers
– 100,000 jobs lost; several airlines went bankrupt
• Insurance Sector
– loss of life and property estimated at $40-$50 billion
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3. The Economic Impact
Immediate and Short-Term Economic Impacts
• Other industries were also badly affected, such as hotels,
tourism, automobile rentals, travel agents, and civilian aircraft
manufactures.
• Hotels reported higher vacancy rates and employment in the
sector as a whole fell by 58,000 (about 3%) in October and
November, 2001
• Nearly 18,000 businesses were dislocated, disrupted or
destroyed by the attacks
• Also, over 300 firefighters and nearly 100 policeman were killed
while trying to evacuate the World Trade Center before it
collapsed
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3. The Economic Impact
Longer-Term Economic Impacts
• Federal Reserve cut interest rates aggressively
• Special financing incentives offered by the automobile
companies led to record motor vehicle sales for October 2001
• Securities market was only closed for four days, opening again
after the telecommunications network in lower Manhattan
became operational.
• Stock market re-opened on September 17th; within 19 trading
days, the S&P 500 index had bounced back to its preSeptember 11th level
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3. The Economic Impact
Longer-Term Economic Impacts
• New York City lost a significant amount of its office space and a
number of businesses ceased to exist.
• Close to 200,000 jobs were destroyed or relocated to other
cities
• 34.5 million square feet of office space lost
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The WTC burning…
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The twin towers collapsed…
3. The Economic Impact
Longer-Term Economic Impacts
• City-wide impact; airports and midtown hotels not just south of Canal Street
• Low-income workers bore the brunt (60%)
• People of color and immigrants (56%) hard hit
• Chinatown, “economic ground zero”, and other poor communities heavily
affected
• Insurance costs have risen on average 33% since 2001
• Diversion of resources and capacity toward security-related products and
services
• Short-term direct impacts were not as significant as the financial costs of the
long-term response that is still underway
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3. The Economic Impact
Bottom Line
• 9/11 events inflicted severe and immediate physical impacts to all
businesses, government offices, and other organizations located in and
around the WTC complex.
• This event involved dead, injured, missing, physically displaced and
traumatized employees, losses of data, information, and institutional
knowledge, and an unprecedented uncertainty in market behavior
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4. The Response: Building Community Resilience
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4. The Response
Building Community Resilience
APA suggests that characteristics of resilient people include:
• Optimism – maintaining hope about the future
• Self-efficacy – confidence in one’s skills to manage or accomplish the task
at hand
• Intellectual mastery – belief in one’s ability to exert positive control over
their environment, and to break down complex problems into smaller, more
accomplishable tasks and goals
• Social competency – social skills help one deal with stress in a
constructive and positive manner.
• Cohesive family - family cohesion and support buffer the negative impact of
stress in youth
• Models – Peers, parents, siblings, or others model effective coping with
stress, providing important learning opportunities
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4. The Response
Building Community Resilience
• How is the U.S. working to build resilience in its communities?
Four Common Themes
Preparation
Communication
Education
Social Capital
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4. The Response
Preparation
• Equipping and training first responders and emergency personnel
• For example, disaster drills in cities of all sizes throughout the U.S.
–
–
–
–
mock detonation of a weapon of mass destruction at a university
Simulation of mass vaccination event
Response drill involving simultaneous car bombs at multiple locations
Video training and computer simulations
• National Incident Management System Capability Assessment Support Tool
(NIMCAST), the first step in a process to reaching full National Incident
Management System (NIMS), compliance
• NIMS was established by DHS to provide a consistent nationwide template
to enable all government, private-sector and nongovernmental organizations
to work together during domestic incidents
• Also, multi-state exercises held to foster state-state cooperation
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4. The Response
Communication
• U.S. government is doing its best to communicate to its citizens all that was
known about the attacks
– For example, 9/11 Commission Report
• Communicating all that can be shared about the threat of new attacks
– Homeland Security Advisory System
– DHS Alerts for specific sectors (aviation, financial, etc.)
• Communicating suggestions for preparing communities and families
– new emergency alert notification systems developed in several large
metropolitan areas
– New radio towers, transmitters, antennas, wireless information networks, etc.
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4. The Response
Education
• Education about terrorism and personal safety is also playing an important
role in fostering resilience
• Department of Homeland Security has launched a number of public
awareness campaigns, including websites
– For example, www.ready.gov
– Many efforts focus on encouraging families to develop their own emergency plan
and supplies
• Other examples include programs in schools, where teachers talk to children
about 9/11 and terrorism in general
• Education of teachers, school bus drivers on how to look for suspicious
activity which might indicate terrorism
• Education of truck drivers on how to look for suspicious activity which might
indicate terrorism
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4. The Response
Building Social Capital
• Community Emergency Response Training (CERT) initiatives
– developed throughout the United States, and designed to give ordinary
residents the necessary skills and knowledge to react and control the
situation for a period of 72 hours following a disaster
– Draws from materials prepared by FEMA’s Emergency Management
Institute (EMI) and the National Fire Academy
– Made available to anyone online via website
• Other Citizen Corps-sponsored efforts (www.citizencorps.gov)
• Goal = Engage community members in meeting the challenges of a
terrorist threat, such as volunteering to support local emergency
responders, disaster relief, and community safety
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4. The Response
CERT Training
• Session 1, Disaster Preparedness
• Session 2, Disaster Fire Suppression
• Session 3, Disaster Medical Operations Part I
• Session 4, Disaster Medical Operations, Part II
• Session 5, Light Search and Rescue Operations
• Session 6, Disaster Psychology and Team Organization
• Session 7, Course Review and Disaster Simulation
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5. Recommendations and Conclusion
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5. Recommendations and Conclusion
Provide New Forms of Public Education
• There is much that could be done to educate the public at large about the
true nature of the terrorist threat
• Al Qaeda and affiliate terrorist groups seek to attack the United States
because of “our values” or “our way of life”
• Rather, they have a strategy and goals they are trying to achieve
• “The settlement of this overburdened account will indeed be heavy. We will
also aim to continue, by permission of Allah, the destruction of the American
economy.” - Ayman Al-Zawahiri (6 October, 2002)
• Educate the public about the root conditions and facilitators of terrorism
• Also, need more education about what average citizens can do to help foster
resilience in our communities
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5. Recommendations and Conclusion
Build Social Capital and Strengthen Social Networks
• Good relationships with close family members, friends, or others are
important. Accepting help and support from those who care about you and
will listen to you strengthens resilience.
• It is a mistake to rely solely on the government to deal with the immediate
impact of terrorist attacks. Community empowerment must play a prominent
role in any national resilience strategy.
• For example, the government could provide tax breaks and other incentives
to individuals and families who join any number of local organizations and
participate in community-building.
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5. Recommendations and Conclusion
Promote Greater Coordination
• Several reports have highlighted a lack of intelligence sharing and
organizational cooperation that exists throughout many federal and state
agencies.
• We must break down the barriers to interagency cooperation—like
organizational culture, differing technologies, turf wars, personality clashes
and parochial agendas.
• Agencies at the federal, state and local levels need to be able to
communicate effectively;
– 5 years after 9/11, the NYPD and FDNY still do not have common frequencies
and protocols for communication
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5. Recommendations and Conclusion
Promote Greater Coordination (cont.)
• Need greater public-private coordination in order to address many of the
preparation and education-related dimensions of resilience described earlier
in this essay.
• Need to ensure critical infrastructure redundancy in case of future terrorist
attack, since 85% of the nation’s critical infrastructure is owned by the
private sector.
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5. Recommendations and Conclusion
Provide Bold Leadership
• Leaders matter most in times of crisis
• This is particularly true in fostering a nation’s resilience in the face of
terrorism.
• Leaders communicate challenges and strategies, and provide resources for
preparation and education.
• Much of the current administration’s focus is on combating terrorism,
specifically, locating terrorists, disrupting their networks, and bringing violent
criminals and extremists to justice.
• We also need leadership that is dedicated to public education, rather than to
secrecy in all matters related to national security.
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5. Recommendations and Conclusion
Bottom Line
• Leaders of a liberal democracy must enlist the support and assistance
of the public, and enable them to be responsible contributors to the
struggle against terrorism.
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Questions/Discussion?