April 18 - In a post 9/11 world, the Oklahoma City bombing seems like an eternity ago. But not to Jon Hansen, the city"s former assistant fire department chief. He vividly remembers April 19, 1995, when a massive explosion sliced off the face of the Alfred B. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168, including 19 children. "For us, it seems like it was only yesterday," he says. Hansen now advises governments and businesses on emergency preparedness, including new technologies for search and rescue. He spoke with NEWSWEEK"s
Carl Sullivan about the anniversary and whether America"s heartland is ready for another attack.
NEWSWEEK: It"s hard to believe it"s been 10 years.
John Hansen: It"s really hard to believe because it"s still so fresh in the memory of all the emergency responders and survivors.
How prepared were Oklahoma City officials for that day?
We were probably as prepared as we could have been. I don"t know if that"s a cop-out or not. We typically practiced for the natural disasters since we live in tornado alley. But in terms of being ready for something that catastrophic, where you"ve got hundreds of structures damaged, a lot of people trapped under very adverse conditions in terms of the concrete and steel, we weren"t ready to face something of that magnitude.
And today? Are America"s smaller cities better prepared?
We went through a wake-up call in "95 and certainly 9/11, rather than thinking, "Wow, this is an isolated incident." The federal administration has offered funding, local states have offered funding " we"ve made it a priority. So are we better able to respond today than we were in 1995? Absolutely. Are we there yet in total training for response? No sir. We"re close to where we need to be, but we"re just not there yet in terms of training, equipment and readiness.
9/11 kind of blew Oklahoma City out of the public"s consciousness. And when people talk about terrorism today, they seem to be thinking mostly about New York and Washington. What should Americans remember about Oklahoma City?
You bring up a great point. I don"t think that necessarily Oklahoma City has been deemphasized. It was a different type of mechanism; a truck bomb vs. driving an airplane into the tallest building in the world--obviously that"s much more of a statement. In our training sessions around the country, we"re really reemphasizing Oklahoma City because it"s easier for a terrorist to take a Ryder truck or car and pack it full of explosives and park it in front of a building than it is to commandeer an airliner and run it into a building. If you look at the chosen mechanism for terrorism around our world, more than 90 percent of terrorism involves explosive or incendiary devices. So be it domestic or be it foreign terrorism, Oklahoma City is more of a typical terrorist incident than the catastrophic impact of flying an airplane into a building.
There"s now a cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security. How are relations between local authorities and the federal government on terrorism?
One of the issues is: are those smaller cities getting adequate funding? Congress set up a system whereby the money goes straight from Homeland Security to a state organization that the governor names. Then the cities can apply to the states for grants. It"s certainly better than it was in 1995 and than it was in 2001. There are some tough decisions to make: where do you put the money? Do you put it in response? Do you put it into intelligence to try to prevent attacks? After going through Oklahoma City and New York City, I believe prevention is certainly the key, but we"re not going to be able to prevent it all. So you have to be prepared to respond and lessen the impact.
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What"s most needed in cities?
Probably more intelligence. The state agencies need to share information with the local law enforcement agencies. And on the response side, adequate training for the unthinkable, the weapons of mass destruction, the dirty bombs, the biohazards. We"ve got a lot of work to do.
Since 9/11, there have been numerous reports about federal agencies not sharing vital information with each other. And even local agencies may not always share resources.
There have been turf battles. I certainly experienced this in my career, where police is police and fire is fire. A wonderful thing happened to us just prior to the "95 bombing. We had the opportunity to attend a course at the Emergency Management Institute that forced us all to work together in drills. Our entire city for a week did disaster drills with each other. And we finally realized, "Wow, we really need these other people. We can"t do it alone." And I promise you: you go through an Oklahoma City, you"ll realize how bad you need everybody else. On the local level, I think we"re doing a better job maybe than the people on the federal level of working and playing together better. I don"t know all their issues on the federal level. I know there are some trust issues and leaking information that shouldn"t be leaked, and I"m sure that"s a valid concern. But for me as an emergency responder, that"s a poor excuse"when the rubble"s in the background and maybe we could have prevented this if you had told us about it beforehand.
After 1995, you got involved with using technology to help emergency-response crews.
Once the blast happened and we responded, it was really a mess. We were using paper maps of the Murrah Building that we had drawn ourselves. We finally got a copy of the building plans on day three and we put them on a table and we couldn"t really read them because we"re not architects. But using computer disks of the building"s original schematics we were able to reconstruct the building and plot missing people based on their last known locations. Then they "collapsed" the building on the computer and we were able to plot where those people would be based on the dynamics of a building collapse into a debris field. It allowed us to get to victims quicker. It allowed us to return remains and to lessen exposure to our rescue workers. Now I"m working with Autodesk which designs building software for architects to provide building information in advance to public-safety agencies. This could be useful to police in hostage situations or to predict a bomb blast. Same thing with hazardous chemicals.
There"s an iconic photograph of Oklahoma City firefighter Chris Fields carrying a child away from the building. What did he tell you about that moment?
We did a lot of the day-after media stuff together. At the time, when the baby was handed to him, he wasn"t even thinking about it. It was one of those things where he was caught doing his job. He passed the little one off and went back to work. He didn"t even know [the picture] was taken.
Where is he now?
He"s a company officer with the fire department " still on the job.
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Proud Daddy of Mini Red Hawk
Master of the Poof-B-Gone Pen
I worked in anti-terror work during the '80's (then it was mostly domestic) Most of the things we are currently doing in Homeland Security came out of the anti-terrorism act of 1996. Unfortunately it was not properly funded by Congress until after 9/11.
We still have some of the same problems, nothing has changed at the FBI as to how they do business, they still don't like to talk to local law enforcement who are usually the ones with the best local intelligence.
A lot of money has been wasted doing duplicious work. Every agency has to do the same assessements and jump through the same hoops to get the grant money allocated.
The money needs to be spent so we have duel use plans and equipment, if we are prepared for a terrorist event then we are prepared for a flood, tornado, or flu epidemic.
I hope we have learned a few lessons from Oklahoma City and 9/11 as to how we all need to work together to prevent or respond to these types of incidents.
Regarding the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, true fact: I was stationed in the USCG at the USCG Pay & Personnel Center HQ office in Topeka, KS (yeah, yeah, I know... The Coast Guard in KANSAS?!?! ) We did ALL the payroll for the entire USCG (active,reserve,retired) all from Topeka, KS in the Federal Bldg. Senator Bob Dole's office was on the 2nd deck just below us too. Anyway, true fact - Timothy McVey, the other guy Nichols, and the Ryder truck stopped at the Carlson Federal Bldg in Topeka, KS first!!! Word has it, they cased the place out, decided against it, and then drove south to Oklahoma City!
I didn't know anybody personaly who was hurt or killed in the building itself. I did know someone who had a relative several buildings away but had the windows blasted out still. I actually did read the book that Mcvaugh wrote but only after he was put to death. That dude had some serious issues
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Proud Daddy of Mini Red Hawk
Master of the Poof-B-Gone Pen
Location: land of the Lilliputians, In the state of insanity
Posts: 24,185
RE: Oklahoma City Bombing: 10 years later
If you ever want the most profound, surreal experience of your life, go visit the memorial. It will bring you to tears. Especially all the little chairs (the ones representing the dead children.)
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kaafir mushrik
Unintended consequences and God have one thing in common: Liberals dont believe in either of them.
Location: land of the Lilliputians, In the state of insanity
Posts: 24,185
RE: Oklahoma City Bombing: 10 years later
Quote:
ORIGINAL: ButchA
Here's a scare for you....
Regarding the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, true fact: I was stationed in the USCG at the USCG Pay & Personnel Center HQ office in Topeka, KS (yeah, yeah, I know... The Coast Guard in KANSAS?!?! ) We did ALL the payroll for the entire USCG (active,reserve,retired) all from Topeka, KS in the Federal Bldg. Senator Bob Dole's office was on the 2nd deck just below us too. Anyway, true fact - Timothy McVey, the other guy Nichols, and the Ryder truck stopped at the Carlson Federal Bldg in Topeka, KS first!!! Word has it, they cased the place out, decided against it, and then drove south to Oklahoma City!
Butch A.
Scary stuff. If only we knew how many times our finite lives were narrowly saved. Makes you wonder.
__________________
kaafir mushrik
Unintended consequences and God have one thing in common: Liberals dont believe in either of them.
Oklahoma City Bombing: 10 years later
We did ALL the payroll for the entire USCG (active,reserve,retired) all from Topeka, KS in the Federal Bldg. Senator Bob Dole's office was on the 2nd deck just below us too. Anyway, true fact - Timothy McVey, the other guy Nichols, and the Ryder truck stopped at the Carlson Federal Bldg in Topeka, KS first!!! Word has it, they cased the place out, decided against it, and then drove south to Oklahoma City! 
