CRISIS | RESPONSE
The first pump you can use
anywhere, for any rescue
operation.
Emission-free
• Can be used in confined spaces
like tunnels
• No health risk
Next generation LiFePO4
battery technology
• Long running time, 90 minutes
vehicle extrication
• Can be used at high altitudes
Lowest sound level and ECO
whisper mode
• Less stressful for victims,
improves communication
All weather proof
• Same excellent performance
in the rain or freezing cold
You can count
on us, for life
Darwinian terrorism; Azerbaijan; Typhoon Bopha; Waco explosion; Boston bombs; Security in Pakistan; Police training Rwanda; Cyber security; CBRN; Supply Chains; Nepal
New:
Greenline
battery pump
SPU 16 BC
Holmatro Rescue World
VOL:8|ISSUE:4
Holmatro | Rescue equipment
T +31 (0)162 58 92 00 | rescue@holmatro.com | www.holmatro.com
CRISIS | RESPONSE
VOL:8
|
ISSUE:4
WWW.CRISIS-RESPONSE.COM
JOURNAL
CITY RESILIENCE
Sustainable urban safety and security
CBRN
Changing attitudes
CRIME
Police & terrorism
CYBER SAFETY
Simple steps to take
PLUS
Focus on Azerbaijan
Boston bomb attacks
Police training in Rwanda
Supply chain lessons in Iran
Interview with Nicholas You
Civil-military response
in Austria & UK
◆ Emergency management
in China
◆ Airport safety in Nepal
◆
◆
◆
◆
◆
◆
US: Terrorist attacks, Boston
Herman B ‘Dutch’ Leonard and Arnold M Howitt say that 12 to 15
years ago, Boston would not have handled the Marathon bombings as
effectively as it did this April, and that internal institutional preparedness and
ability to integrate effort with other agencies are far superior today
Boston Marathon
bombing response
O
ne of the greatest deficiencies
of large-scale, emergency response
– notably revealed in the US in the
response to both 9/11 in New York City and
Hurricane Katrina – is the weak co-ordination
of multiple first-response organisations and
supporting agencies in the midst of crisis.
But more than a decade of work to prepare
responders for major operations has begun to
pay off. The Boston Marathon bombing and the
massive effort to identify and apprehend the
terrorists this April, while not as massive a crisis
as either 9/11 or Katrina, stands as a notable
example of effective, co-operative first-response
operations, as well as political collaboration. It
demonstrates that at least some jurisdictions
in the US have made important progress in
overcoming the difficulties of multi-institution
co-ordination during large-scale operations.
The centralised planning for this event drew
on a strong culture of preparing for large ‘fixed’
on the importance of joint planning. Boston
stages many large-scale events, some annual,
some unique – from a New Year’s Eve First
Night celebration, the July 4 Esplanade
concert and the arrival of Tall Ships, to parades
honouring national championship baseball,
football, basketball and hockey teams.
A strong pattern of collaborative planning
for such events has become routine,
reinforced by formal and informal efforts to
train responders for co-ordinated action, to
exercise across agencies, jurisdictions, and
levels of government, and to build strong
professional and personal relationships among
commanders of law enforcement, firefighting,
and emergency medical organisations.
While planning and preparedness had
been directed by senior management, the
implementation of emergency actions did not
depend on centralised leadership. Significantly,
during the crisis in Boston, the response
As terrible as this attack was, we need to
recognise that it was nonetheless smallscale – by no means the largest mass-casualty
event that we may be called upon to address
events (for which time and location are known
well in advance) across multiple professional
disciplines (police, fire, EMS, National Guard).
Although it took root earlier, this culture became
much sturdier in the aftermath of 9/11.
When Boston faced the challenge of preparing
for a National Special Security Event – the 2004
Democratic Party’s National Convention – it
formed a multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional,
multi-level planning group that worked for
more than a year developing security plans.
Many lessons for future collaboration were
learned from this, along with an emphasis
18
+
CRISIS | RESPONSE
VOL 8 ISSUE 4
exhibited major elements of self-organising
collaboration by small teams rather than
top-down command. This resulted from the
structuring of response in common emergency
operating methods through the National Incident
Management System (NIMS), as well as
systematic development of organisational and
personal ties among the diverse responders.
Collaborative event planning, training,
exercising, and deployment at many large public
events that have not suffered emergencies,
laid the groundwork for performance in crisis.
Footage of the explosions near the finish
line shows that blast waves pushed spectators
away from the impact zone, but within seconds
they began to run back to render help. The
high density of the crowd contributed to the
large number of injuries – but it also meant
that there were many people immediately
available to render aid. The number of people
who climbed over barricades or tore them
down to allow others to enter, and provided
aid with whatever means were available,
shows a city and a society at its best – people
spontaneously helping each other without
regard to culture, ethnicity, or nationality (the
bravery of responders at the scene ran contrary
to training to beware of secondary attacks).
The medical response was also immediate
and skilled. Trained responders at the scene,
working with members of the public, placed
tourniquets, held pressure, and transported
survivors to medical tents and on to ambulances
beyond. Then teams of doctors, nurses, and
clinical staff at hospitals took over. A large
number of the grievous wounds from the
blast and shrapnel would, in almost any other
circumstances have proved fatal, but it appears
that every person who was alive when definitive
medical help was applied – in most cases,
within minutes of the blast – is still alive today.
That success stems from several factors.
Hundreds of medically-trained personnel
were at the scene of the blast, the result of
detailed central planning and learning from
previous Boston Marathons and other events.
Boston EMS and other local government
and private emergency medical services
had intensively trained and exercised,
including with other responders, and had
frequently deployed to special events.
In an ordinary Marathon year, thousands
of runners come off the course needing care
for blisters, heatstroke or possible cardiac
incident analysis
problems. While not deployed specifically to
aid bomb victims, medical personnel stationed
near the finish line were skilled and adaptable
and could stabilise bomb survivors, who were
then triaged and dispatched to medical facilities
which, real-time communication indicated,
had the capacity to handle their injuries.
Fortunately, the bomb blasts did not directly
degrade medical personnel and equipment
positioned near the Marathon finish line – by
contrast with the extensive loss in the Haiti
earthquake of 2010. This suggests that future
event planners should ensure that crucial
resources are not concentrated in a single
position and thus left vulnerable to attack.
Moreover, significant changes in treatment of
blast and shrapnel trauma victims, developed
on battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan, had
made their way into home-front trauma
response. In particular, tourniquets, proven
to staunch blood loss from major injuries to
extremities, were deployed in the equipment
of EMS personnel at the Marathon.
Resourcefulness
Blast waves pushed spectators away from
the impact zone, but within seconds they ran
back to help others who had been injured
Rex Features
+
CRISIS | RESPONSE
VOL 8 ISSUE 4
19
s
Boston has an extremely high concentration of
the nation’s leading tertiary medical facilities,
each with an emergency room, trauma unit,
and advanced speciality medical services.
Five of these six facilities are located within
two miles of the bomb blast. This permitted
definitive in-hospital care for critically-injured
patients in less than a half hour – saving
many who otherwise might have perished.
In recent years, these medical facilities
had extensively planned, practised, and
trained for mass casualty events. While
most preparation did not spotlight casualties
from a bomb attack, Massachusetts General
Hospital had recently consulted with experts
from Israel about how to handle a sudden
flow of blast and shrapnel survivors.
The surge of patients facing hospitals in this
incident, however, was beyond their experience,
planning and normal capacity. Instead of being
overwhelmed, they met the surge of patients
with resourcefulness, clearing space occupied
by less needy patients and improvising to
accommodate unprecedented demands.
Notably, in the moments of crisis, the
response by medical personnel, both at the site
of the blast and in the hospitals, was handled
nearly completely without central direction.
EMTs and physicians at the scene, following
pre-established protocols and improvising
as necessary, were largely self-directed in
caring for the injured. Doctors and nurses
with relevant skills converged on emergency
rooms without having to be called.
s
As ambulances delivered patients to
hospitals, groups of clinicians self-organised
into trauma teams. In one emergency room,
people who were not needed to provide direct
care realised that there was a congestion
problem. They organised themselves in a
side room from which they could be called
as their particular skills were needed.
Several emergency room ‘incident
commanders’ commented that they had to
give few instructions. One said: “Everybody
spontaneously knew their dance moves.”
Mass casualty training and drills provided a
structure for action within which improvisation
to meet special problems was possible.
As the surgical teams worked, commanders
became co-ordinators, helping to move
scarce resources where they were most
needed, dealing with the big picture, while
providing support to the direct care teams.
Although the full story is not yet on
the public record, well over a dozen law
enforcement agencies from a range of
municipalities and universities, as well as
the state and federal governments, co-
ordinated very effectively in responding to
this incident. They pieced together the nature
of the attack; identified the two perpetrators’
images; responded to the perpetrators’ flight
and engaged in a dramatic, but chaotic
shootout that killed one; and apprehended
the survivor after a massive manhunt.
Considerable progress
While certainly not perfect, only a massively
collaborative effort could have orchestrated
the skills, databases, intelligence, technology,
operational capabilities, and personnel
needed to accomplish the many law
enforcement tasks involved. No single agency
had the operational range, manpower, or
combination of technical assets and boots on
the ground to manage the entire process.
In past operations, lack of co-operation
and weak integration of effort have frequently
hampered performance. The Marathon aftermath
demonstrated that considerable progress has
been made in establishing the relationships
and organisational infrastructure that allow
agencies to work effectively together.
Law enforcement agencies, for example,
sifted massive amounts of photographic
evidence from public and private surveillance
cameras, news media, and spectators to identify
the principal suspects. This required both
considerable labour and advanced technologies.
By publicising images of the suspects, the
public could be enlisted in identifying them.
The rapid movement towards identification
seems to have contributed to the perpetrators’
flight and ultimate capture. The police pursuit,
gunfight, public lockdown, and house-to-house
search – notwithstanding rough edges – also
demonstrated the capacity of law enforcement
agencies to work together. This improvement
stems both from the experiences of planning
numerous, major fixed events in past years,
as discussed above, and from extensive cooperation specific to law enforcement as part of
national defence against terrorism within the US.
The end game leading to the capture
of the second principal suspect, involved
deployment of officers from many agencies’
tactical teams, as well as robotic and heatsensing technology. This suggests the
The Boston Marathon Bombing
On April 15, a few thousand spectators were
tightly-packed at the finish line of the 117th
Boston Marathon to cheer on runners who,
nearly four hours after the starter’s pistol shot,
had conquered the 26.2 mile course.
At 14:50 hrs, a powerful improvised explosive device
detonated without warning among the onlookers,
followed 12 seconds later by an even more powerful
IED nearby. Both scattered nails, ball bearings and
metal shards intended to kill and maim. Three people
died, and more than 260 others needed hospital care,
many having lost limbs or suffering horrific wounds.
Those explosions began about 100 hours of drama
that riveted the attention of the nation and left the local
public shaken but proud. This account describes these
events as the facts seem at this still early time of writing.
Within seconds of the blasts, medical personnel and
many spectators leaped to provide aid to victims at the
scene. EMTs triaged and transported the severely injured
to area hospitals, where surgical teams mobilised and
opened operating suites for immediate care to dozens
who had lost limbs or suffered life-threatening injuries.
Law enforcement officers from many local, state and
federal agencies converged to secure a 12-block area
around the scene, search for additional IEDs, and begin
to gather evidence that might identify the perpetrators.
Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Boston
Mayor Thomas Menino provided support to law
enforcement and medical professionals, co-ordinated
20
+
CRISIS | RESPONSE
VOL 8 ISSUE 4
their own governmental domains and connected
with federal agencies and prosecutors. Senior
elected leaders and law enforcement officials from
all levels held regular joint press conferences over
the next several days to keep the public informed.
The Boston Police and other agencies also used
Facebook and Twitter to provide public updates.
The FBI and state and local police collected video
surveillance tapes from public and commercial
sources and put out an appeal for photos taken at the
scene that day. For several days, law enforcement
agencies scrutinised hundreds of thousands of images,
eventually zeroing in on two suspects; but efforts to
match their faces to government databases failed.
On Wednesday, CNN mistakenly reported that arrests
had been made, the NY Post ran photos of two ‘bag
men’ it incorrectly implied were the bombers, and social
media erroneously speculated about specific individuals.
On Thursday, April 18, President Barack Obama
joined local leaders in a national broadcast
service honouring the dead and wounded, as
well as the first responders who provided aid and
were searching for the terrorist suspects.
Meanwhile on Thursday, law enforcement leaders
debated whether to release the suspects’ images
to the public. Would this put them to flight or send
them underground? Or would someone know and
identify them? Early Thursday evening, the FBI posted
photographs of the two suspected terrorists on its
website, setting off 24 hours of frenzied action.
The terrorists, perhaps spooked by an email to
one from a friend asking whether it was him in the
photos, left their apartment in Cambridge, killed an MIT
campus policeman in an unsuccessful effort to take his
firearm, then hijacked a Mercedes sedan and its driver
whose ATM they used to get funds for their escape.
But the driver escaped and called 911,
reporting that the carjackers had claimed they
were the Boston Marathon bombers. Tracking the
Mercedes’ vehicle navigation system to nearby
Watertown, police converged on the terrorists.
Very early on Friday morning, a gun battle
ensued in a densely populated but usually quiet
neighbourhood in suburban Watertown. More than
200 rounds were fired, and explosive devices were
hurled at police. The older terrorist, wounded, charged
police and was knocked to the ground. The younger,
also wounded, tried to run down the officers in the
hijacked auto; but instead ran over the older one, who
subsequently died. The fleeing terrorist abandoned
his car several blocks away and escaped on foot.
The terrorists had been identified as
brothers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 26
and 19 years old, respectively, immigrants of
Chechen heritage who had come to the US from
Dagestan in Russia about a decade earlier.
Hundreds of officers began to assemble, while
those at the scene sought to stanch the bleeding of
incident analysis
utility of some of the investment made in
equipment, training and technology to equip
law enforcement with advanced capabilities.
Much of the federal funding for drills,
exercises, and law enforcement training in
the last decade has required that exercises be
regional and multi-agency, so the process of
collaboration has been practised regularly.
Starting only hours after the blast, the
public was kept informed through joint press
multiple agencies, levels of government, and
jurisdictions visually presented an image of
unity of purpose and co-ordination in action.
This reflected and encouraged the teamwork
evident among the many organisations involved.
The briefings were factual, avoided
speculation, and emphasised both what was
known and unknown. They were presented
directly, succinctly, and calmly. Amid public
anxiety, emotional turmoil and uncertainty,
Self-organised teams, often improvising their
response, provided on-scene medical attention,
facilitated hospital trauma care, and led to the
ultimate apprehension of the surviving terrorist
briefings by a collection of public officials.
These were led by the Massachusetts
Governor and Boston Mayor, and typically
included the Boston Police Commissioner, the
Massachusetts State Police Superintendent,
the FBI’s Boston Office Special-Agent-inCharge, the US Attorney for Massachusetts,
and the ATF Boston Field Division SpecialAgent-in-Charge. As events evolved, other
officials, when relevant, participated.
The collaborative presentations by
these briefings could not assuage all fears or
provide all desired answers; but they were,
nonetheless, a generally calming and grounding
influence, helping the community develop a
broader, consistent, more accurate view of
events. One exception was a period of intensified
anxiety on Wednesday as an expected
press conference was delayed many times,
heightening apprehensions. But for the most
part, the careful orchestration of the joint and
collaborative presentation of factual information
an officer, severely wounded, possibly by friendly fire.
He was soon taken by ambulance to a hospital where he
remained in critical condition for many days – but survived.
By dawn on Friday morning, law enforcement launched an
extraordinary manhunt. Police had cordoned off a 20-block
area in Watertown, while hundreds of officers commenced a
deliberate, house-to-house search for the younger Tsarnaev,
who was assumed (incorrectly) still to be armed. In case
he had eluded pursuers, key officials decided in the early
hours before the morning commute to shut down the entire
public transportation system of the Boston metro area –
buses, subways, light rail and commuter rail. In addition, the
Governor of Massachusetts declared a voluntary ‘shelterin-place’ order to residents, and a lock-down request to
businesses, in a half-dozen towns bordering Watertown.
That order was soon extended to the city of Boston,
covering in total about one million people in the metro area.
Streets were deserted, businesses shuttered, and most
citizens were glued to television sets, radios, or internet sites.
Public compliance was very high – remarkably
so, it seemed to some observers – even though the
lock-down lasted until after 17:00 hrs. Hundreds of
police from dozens of agencies fruitlessly searched
the 20-block area of Watertown. At the same time,
authorities worked to secure the brothers’ Cambridge
apartment, which they feared was wired with explosives.
As the search proceeded, residents in Watertown
and the brothers’ Inman Square neighbourhood were
evacuated from their homes with little warning.
Throughout Friday, the local and some national media
maintained continuous on-scene video coverage. For
the first time in a major terrorist incident in the US,
social media also played a large part. Twitter, Facebook,
Reddit and others danced with posts of opinion and
‘fact’ – both on-the-money accurate and mistakenly or
maliciously wrong – from those at or near the scene or
from monitoring police radio or media broadcasts.
Shortly after 17:00 hrs on Friday, the Governor, the
Mayor of Boston and senior police officials held a televised
joint press briefing to lift the metro-area lock-down, even
though Dzhokhar Tsarnaev remained at large. They said
the search would continue in Watertown and elsewhere,
recommending that residents remain cautious.
Within minutes, however, a Watertown resident who
lived near the edge of the search perimeter, reported
in a 911 call that as he had gone outside for fresh air,
he had seen something askew on a boat in his yard,
looked inside, and saw blood and a man lying there.
Law enforcement personnel from many local, state, and
federal agencies converged on the house. Fearing further
gunfire or explosive devices, police cautiously but rapidly
evacuated nearby residents. Helicopters hovered above the
boat, using thermal imaging to monitor movements of the
figure inside. At one point, police guns fired a major volley.
An FBI hostage rescue team tried to coax Tsarnaev out
of hiding. When he didn’t move, they rushed the boat and
subdued him. Badly wounded and having lost much blood,
he was soon under arrest and transported to hospital.
played a salutary role throughout the week.
Some 12 to 15 years ago, Boston would
not have handled the Marathon bombings as
effectively as it did in April. EMS and hospitalbased emergency departments would have
been challenged by the number of wounded
victims arriving simultaneously. Similarly,
law enforcement co-operation would not have
been possible to the degree evidenced, and the
broad-based political leadership co-operation
evident in the press briefings might well have
been impossible. Today, internal institutional
preparedness and ability to integrate effort
with other agencies is far superior.
Notably, as events broke swiftly, collaboration
frequently formed bottom-up rather than by
direction from above. Self-organised teams,
often improvising their response, provided
on-scene medical attention, facilitated
hospital trauma care, and led to the ultimate
apprehension of the surviving terrorist.
But this was self-organised, not disorganised
teamwork. Though it responded to unpredictable
events, it occurred within a framework of
action and a culture created over a decade and
more through training, exercising, planning
and inculcation of the principles of the NIMS.
Importantly, it was improvisation within a
structured system, not undisciplined action.
In conclusion, even as we appreciate how the
medical system and law enforcement managed
to handle the needs of blast survivors and
apprehend the perpetrators of the bombing,
we need to recognise that a larger attack could
have produced enough additional casualties
to overstretch even the expanded capacities of
the medical system. Two apparently amateur
terrorists turned a major metropolitan area
upside down on the day of the crisis.
As terrible as this attack was, we need to
recognise that it was nonetheless small-scale
– by no means the largest mass-casualty
event that we may be called upon to address.
The advances in institutional capability and
co-ordination that the Marathon emergency
response reflected cannot be seen as an end
point in the development of crisis management
skill, organisation, and capacity.
Authors
herman B ‘dutch’ Leonard is
Professor of Public Management
at HKS and Professor of Business
Administration at Harvard
Business School.
arnold M howitt is Executive Director
of the Ash Center for Democratic
Governance at Harvard Kennedy School
(HKS). Together they are Faculty CoDirectors of the HKS Program on Crisis Leadership
+
CRISIS | RESPONSE
VOL 8 ISSUE 4
21