I felt that yesterday in class we had a very productive evening. In this week’s blog post I would like to discuss two of the most interesting topics I heard in class which included viewing how the people react and get through natural disasters opposed to the government doing everything and technology changed after the 9/11 attacks. After leaving the classroom last night I feel that an interest was sparked in me that made me want to read parts of the 9/11 Commission Report.
One of the views of the public is seen as a powerful, self-organizing, and collectively intelligent force and they have a better understanding of how citizens respond to a disaster. I agree with this argument over the argument that people are not intelligent and scare easily during a terrorist attack or natural disaster. I think that it is a false statement for the most part that people just freeze up when in the face of imminent danger. On the contrary human beings frolic to danger; for example, if a plane crashed outside of the IST building I am sure at least half of the class if not more would go out and either get a closer look or attempt to help the crash victims. This goes to show that it is in human nature to want to help each other in times of danger and crisis.
The next topic that I wish to talk about is whether or not I think that we would be more prepared for another terrorist attack in New York City drastically similar to the 9/11 attacks. First and foremost, there would be no stopping the main sources of communications due to the fact that everyone would be on their cell phones, therefore overloading the system. This would render cellphones as useless pieces of junk and another source of communication would be necessary. As we all know, all of the telecommunications infrastructure were down from the crashes that day, but there were a few ways we could have been better prepared for the blackout. One example would have been to implement fiber optic cables instead of copper wire bundles because they have a single point fail point, which would make it easier to lose power. This proves that we as the United States could have been more prepared and had better mitigation planning to deal with these terrible events.
The following link was used in my presentation during this week in class:
This video was presented by FEMA, which is the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In this video, they tell the importance of a disaster mitigation plan, what steps need to be completed before the disaster occurs, and how the disaster can be mitigated after it occurs and finding the best possible ways to save as many people as possible. I thought the video was very interesting because FEMA was the main source of disaster relief during the 9/11 attacks, and this video had a good representation of what FEMA does and how they function. After watching this video I learned just how vital it was to having a good mitigation plan for disasters.
First, it is hard to tell where you stand on the argument of whether or not you agree with the fact that people scare easily in the face of disaster. I am going to base my response on that you believe that people do not freeze up or run in the face of a disaster, like a plane crash outside IST. I believe that those who see something happen of that magnitude there would be a response of citizens and emergency services. The citizens would be there before the emergency services due to the people who are around the scene. People would be trying to save as many people as they could and try to help people who can get away from the wreckage on their own. And for those who cannot due to broken legs I am positive people would try to pull people out.
ReplyDeleteHowever, there are certain personality traits people need to have to just run into a dangerous situation. I believe certain types of people like lifeguards, EMS, doctors, military personnel, fire department personnel, and police are more likely to respond with effective help because they are trained in emergency situations. Granted some of the people I listed are only trained to a certain level and to respond to different types of emergencies but those people have some kind of training.
As for the topic about whether we are prepared or not for another attack like the one on 9/11 attacks, I do not think we are prepared for another terrorist attack like those of 9/11. I think the only way we would be prepared is possibly with 911 Emergency services, see Zach McManigle’s post for the class on his blog page he talks about the changes the FCC made to the 911 emergency services. It has a lot of points about how things were upgraded for locating people. Cell phone providers need to build back up towers incase towers would be destroyed by another attack of that magnitude. Since they are rebuilding the area around the Twin Towers I hope that they do not put the majority of cell phone and phone lines in that one building. If the lines would be put in there again, there would be another crash in the communication system across the Manhattan area.
If there would be an attack in another city I don’t even know if I could think theoretically about it. I hope our government intelligence agencies and task forces are working diligently to ensure the safety of our country’s citizens.