Perhaps you saw this one on the national news yesterday--2 Radio Towers in Washington State Toppled As noted in the story, the ELF is claiming it did the dirty deed and the FBI is investigating.
This is an attack on America's critical infrastructure by domestic terrorists. When actions move from spraying graffiti to damaging property there is no other way to call a spade a spade. These actions call into question many different issues in my mind.
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This is an attack on America's critical infrastructure by domestic terrorists. When actions move from spraying graffiti to damaging property there is no other way to call a spade a spade. These actions call into question many different issues in my mind.
- This attack was on one of our emergency management partners--the media in general, and more specifically KRKO in particular. The media, especially radio is one of our last lines of defense in sharing information with the public before, during and after a disaster. Public warnings are disseminated via radio and the Emergency Alert System (EAS). While I love computers, Twitter, the Internet, television, etc. It is the battery operated radio that we tell people to have in their disaster kits so that they can stay informed.
- While this action can be taken in isolation and dismissed--I didn't even find it on the Seattle Times main page this morning, we must remember that other players are watching incidents like this and how we react, what we do to protect other critical infrastructure is not going unnoticed.
- There is more to the story behind KRKO. The key player there is the President and General Manager, Andy Skotdal a personal acquaintance of mine and one of the public-private partners who I value greatly. I'll do a separate profile on him in my next blog posting. He was the key supporter in getting media involved in the King County Regional Disaster Plan.
- I love my cell phone and can see that with people moving to cell phones as their primary mode of communications that without the use of a land line phone there could be interference with the radio waves. The actions taken do not justify the outcome. I was pleased to see that at least the average Joe Citizen opposing the towers has not been radicalized to that line of thinking.
- How do you protect "everything" is another good question this incident raises? I can't imagine trying to take down a 300' tower with a backhoe, even a big one.
- 911 the first line of defense and they are "First Responders" in every way. People know to call 911 and this is an example of how the system should work. Not a successful preventive one, but someone--an alert citizen did take action. We need more people like that who will get involved.
- In the story you will note that KRKO did not go off the air after the towers went down. They didn't miss a beat because of the business continuity planning they had done to survive any disaster. A lesson for every business to learn. I'm know that they did not envision finding the towers laying on their side due to domestic terrorism. All-hazards planning works!
