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Life & Times Transcript

10/02/06

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

First we lay out a disturbing scenario. It's just fictional, but that doesn't make it any less frightening.

Brian Jenkins>> "Eight key centers in this city identified as targets and then we shut down much of the medical care."

Val Zavala>> And then, we force first responders to answer unthinkable questions. Is southern California ready if terrorists attack?

It's all coming up on this special edition of Life and Times.

Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val Zavala>> Welcome to this special edition of Life and Times where we explore in-depth our readiness for a terrorist attack. Now virtually no one believes that, some time in the future, terrorists won't be successful again and Los Angeles, like all major cities, could be a target. So are we ready? Are we prepared? How will we respond?

For some answers, we took an unusual approach. We teamed up with the Los Angeles Times who brought together twelve key leaders from the Police and Sheriff's Departments, the FBI, our airport, Health Department and other agencies. They represented with a fictional but feasible terrorist attack that involved the mass dissemination of anthrax and ricin, two biological chemicals.

We'll hear how they did in a moment, but first we meet the person who designed the scenario. The RAND Corporation in Santa Monica is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research institution with world-class experts. Experts like Brian Jenkins. Jenkins is a senior adviser at RAND, dubbed the dean of American terrorism research.

He's a former captain in the Army's elite Special Forces and he's advised the State Department and Department of Defense. As early as 1972, he predicted that terrorism would threaten. His latest book is called "Unconquerable Nation: Knowing Our Enemy, Strengthening Ourselves". When the Los Angeles Times wanted to challenge leaders with a detailed and realistic terrorism exercise, there was no better person to turn to than Brian Jenkins.

The frightening scenario that he and his team laid out unfolds over forty days. Each new development is delivered to the group on gold paper. He dubbed the exercise "Goldenrod".

Brian Jenkins>> The event itself began with, the scenario began with, a fire in Los Angeles in a warehouse where, upon arrival, the firemen discovered not only that the people in this warehouse had all fled, but they discovered some things inside the warehouse that attracted their attention.

In particular, the presence of gas masks and protective clothing, respirators and things of that sort, and also a curious kind of contraption that was being installed on a vehicle which at first looked like some kind of an exhaust device, but upon closer inspection, resembled the drawings of a device to disseminate biological substances in a populated area. Somebody says, "That looks just like those drawings we found in Afghanistan", so that was Day One.

Val Zavala>> The discussion begins cautiously. The first steps are to start communicating with special task forces in groups set up to deal with terrorist incidents. Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca.

Lee Baca>> Our primary course of action would be to notify the Joint Terrorism Task Force along with our Terrorism Early Warning group. They would be investigating the individuals who were involved in the leasing or renting of the warehouse as well as whatever information can be derived about who, in fact, were involved in this particular scenario.

Val Zavala>> Medical experts are among the first to be alerted. Dr. Jonathan Fielding, Director of Public Health and Health Officer.

Dr. Jonathan Fielding>> Well, what we first want to do internally is to mobilize all our resources and establish a department operating center using an incident command structure. We would initiate surveillance with hospitals. Are they seeing anything unusual? We'd send something out through doctors who are part of our system as well.

We would alert our lab because there is important information to be gleaned from doing additional testing on what was found there and we would mobilize our Public Health Rapid Response team. We would suggest the area be quarantined. We would ask to work closely with the FBI and the sheriff and others to try and find the workers who fled to see if they had any indication of a problem.

Val Zavala>> Since this is a possible terrorist cell, the FBI is brought in. Stephen Tidwell is Assistant Director in charge of the FBI's Los Angeles Bureau.

J. Stephen Tidwell>> As the sheriff mentioned, back in D.C., to invoke at FBI Headquarters the weapons of mass destruction protocols and start bringing to bear all the different federal agencies that would want to shine light on this and start supporting it.

Val Zavala>> While leaders start communications rolling, the investigation continues. Soon the group gets more news.

Brian Jenkins>> Now we go forward a few days. We have an unusual outbreak of anthrax in northern Mexico.

Richard Deppisch>> "I just got a fax from the Department of Food and Agriculture. They say the United States Department of Agriculture and Department of Homeland Security have learned that a cluster of animal deaths and several hospitalizations have occurred of individuals in Baja, California suffering symptoms consistent with anthrax. All reporting entities are instructed to be especially aware of any symptoms of anthrax and report these immediately."

Brian Jenkins>> Their attention focused on a remote ranch which local people thought might have been some kind of a drug lab where they're making methamphetamine or some other substances. Mysterious foreigners are working there, so the Mexican authorities, together with United States authorities present, raided the ranch and, in fact, discovered a biological weapons laboratory, and the people they arrested confessed that some shipments of ricin, minute quantities of anthrax and a number of the devices had already gone north across the border.

Val Zavala>> With biological weapons being produced in Mexico and anthrax, ricin and dissemination devices found in Los Angeles, it seemed two terrorist cells have been uncovered. Much of the discussion now turns to informing the public. How and how much of the information should be released?

J. Stephen Tidwell>> So now we've got teams looking for the devices, teams looking for the weapons, looking for the two biological weapons, and one of the things I know now that Dr. Fielding is asking me what we can do to go public. How are we going to warn the public?

Val Zavala>> Janet Clayton is with the Los Angeles Times acting as the Public Affairs adviser.

Janet Clayton>> It would be important that the public would see authority figures with whom they are familiar and with whom they have confidence. So it should not be a public affairs person. It should not be a public relations person. I would recommend that it would be the mayor, the sheriff, the top health official in Dr. Fielding, Homeland Security, FBI.

These should be people that, again, the public has heard of, knows something about and has reason to believe that they would be fully informed on the latest information. The information, of course, that should be given to people should be presented calmly, but as accurately as you know it at the moment. I think it's important to tell people what you know and what you do not know.

Val Zavala>> In the meantime, the LAPD is trying to anticipate possible terrorist targets. Mark Leap, Deputy Chief for Counter-Terrorism, LAPD.

Mark Leap>> We've been asking our analysts taking this threat information to look at the landscape of southern California and develop a target list so that we would be able to assess which would be the likely target that this type of weapon could be deployed against and then, based on that target list, we would harden that target, take some preventative measures to make it more difficult for the delivery of this type of weapon at that target. We certainly would educate the people that were at those targets or in close proximity of those targets on what they needed to do to protect themselves.

Jonathan Fielding>> We would also have to work very closely with the first responders who would be concerned about going out now to get people and they would have to have personal protective equipment as well as prophylaxis. Otherwise, all the emergency medical services will grind to a halt who have that risk.

Val Zavala>> The mayor's office is represented by Deputy Mayor for Homeland Security, Maurice Suh.

Maurice Suh>> The public information which I think should be succinct, clear and frequent should also contain the steps that are taken to actually mitigate the potential effects and I think this would go far towards keeping calm within our community.

Val Zavala>> While public officials plan the best way to inform the public, the investigation and surveillance of suspects is advancing. But as the days click by, they face a tough decision. At what point do authorities move in, foil any plot and arrest suspects? It is now Day Twenty-Six.

Brian Jenkins>> Where, in fact, their investigations have identified a number of suspects, a significant number of suspects, that appear to be organized in different cells and appear somehow to be involved in this. They're not sure where the material is and they're not sure where all of the devices are. They think they may have one more located.

But at that point, then there are decisions about do we continue the investigation because obviously we would like to understand the entire plot and be able to identify all of those involved, or do we risk losing control and moving on those people we have under surveillance now?

Val Zavala>> It's an issue that police and sheriff's detectives face frequently. Los Angeles Sheriff Lee Baca.

Lee Baca>> You run great risk on an issue that can be as volatile as this when you keep it behind closed doors. The risk you run is the public's choice to do something on their own in terms of either helping us or getting out of town.

Janet Clayton>> Yes, and as a little reality check, this is Day Twenty-six. That's a long time for a terrorist alert, so there would be things called leaks and stories. There would be a logo created on twenty-four hour cable. Every thirty minutes, there would be a new update. Again, withholding that information is really not an option because, if you don't release the information, information will be released anyway. Leaks will occur anyway, so it wouldn't be in anyone's interest to try to sit on it.

Mark Leap>> Certainly the suspects in this plot are capable of monitoring the news media as well as the public is and they would know that we have uncovered this plot and would probably know as much as the rest of the public would. So it would be important for us to just disrupt this plot as soon as possible and get these suspects that we know are involved in it and that we have under surveillance and in our custody. Find out what they know and find out anything we can about some associates that they may have that we don't have in custody.

Val Zavala>> Before the group could come to a conclusion, another page of information is passed out. The decision is made for them. Authorities have moved forward, arresting suspects and thwarting any possible plot. But there's yet something else of great concern.

Brian Jenkins>> Most alarming, at one of the hideouts, they discover a map. This map contains eight locations, major locations in southern California. Los Angeles Airport, Union Station, the Library Tower, Universal CityWalk, places that are important in terms of public transportation, places where the people gather regularly. These would be obvious venues for terrorist attacks.

Val Zavala>> James Butts is in charge of protecting the Los Angeles Airport. He must decide whether to close the CTA, or Central Terminal Area.

James Butts, Jr.>> But since specific information, with the cornucopia of information that's been provided so far, we would close off the traffic to the Central Terminal Area and would activate buses and shuttles to drop off passengers. We would no longer allow private vehicles to travel to the CTA and this would continue until we'd receive information that this plot had been broken up and suspects had been arrested. But for a considerable amount of time, the CTA would be closed.

Lee Baca>> All of these targets would also require mutual aid from other cities that are beyond those that I've mentioned. It will require twelve-hour shift configurations, seven days a week, until we believe that suspects have been caught, the problem has been substantially controlled and that in effect we are confidant that there is no exposure to any terrorist attack.

Val Zavala>> Complicating matters are the various jurisdictions involved. Universal CityWalk and Library Tower are privately owned. The subway and Union Station are public. Some targets are part of the Sheriff's domain, some are in the LAPD. It all requires the various agencies to work together, communicate clearly and act quickly.

Brian Jenkins>> You have adopted a policy of openness with the public here. You have a map with eight locations. Are you going to tell the public that these eight locations have been identified as possible venues for a terrorist attack? An imminent terrorist attack?

Janet Clayton>> Why wouldn't you tell them? Why wouldn't you get it out?

Brian Jenkins>> It's not to convince me. It is for you to discuss.

Mark Leap>> I think, at this point, we would tell them. For one thing, all of these locations are well-known to law enforcement in this region. We've developed response plans for all of these locations. We know how to harden these locations against terrorist attacks. We're not going to shut the city of Los Angeles down. We have the resources, we have the plans, we have the capability to protect these locations and that's what we would do.

Brian Jenkins>> Of course, nationwide we're at orange alert. In the area of southern California, Arizona, Las Vegas, we're at red alert, so there's imminent attack. What would the effect be of making a public announcement under those circumstances that those are possible venues of imminent terrorist attacks? I suspect that the public, in effect, would shut those down. They simply wouldn't go there.

Val Zavala> By now, the possibility of public panic and hysteria looms. Officials must do all they can to keep people informed but calm.

James Butts, Jr.>> And the reality is that people obviously will feel safer because they're informed. They can make intelligent decisions about their own well-being as opposed to being treated like children and you should always air on the side of arming people with the information to protect themselves.

Janet Clayton>> This wouldn't be just a local problem. I would assume that the Feds and everybody would be all over this. Again, it would be reassuring to people. Then as you get the educational information out which, of course, newspapers and websites, television, radio, you would have to keep in mind the special populations that you want to make sure you communicate with, Spanish language, Korean, Farsi, you name it, every language that you could think of, elderly population, all sorts of people who would need to get this information.

Brian Jenkins>> Should they shut down these places? What does it mean to shut down the Los Angeles Airport? What does it mean to shut down Union Station or the subway system?

Jonathan Fielding>> We haven't talked in detail about the massive evacuation. You may have millions of people trying to leave and what impact does that have on our infrastructure as well as trying to move people from hospitals?

Val Zavala>> Containing peoples' fear will be paramount. The announcement of a potential anthrax or ricin attack has many people already believing they're victims.

Brian Jenkins>> We have no confirmed incidents of disbursal. What we have are thousands of the worried well streaming to the hospitals. Everybody with the sniffles is persuaded that they have been exposed to anthrax or ricin.

Val Zavala>> The reaction puts particular strain on our medical system.

James Butts, Jr.>> I think we have to address our emergency medical care system. I read just the other day that Daniel Freeman was going to close their ER. In our state and in our country indeed, our emergency room services impacts medical care for a large number of our citizens that are without health care. When you add to that the immediate responsive need for emergency medical facilities in the event of a scare like this, even if only a hundred people were truly to be affected, everyone that got a cold or a cough would think that they needed care.

Val Zavala>> And then, another piece of bad news is given to the group.

Brian Jenkins>> Because some members of the hospital staff begin to show symptoms, we then have the hospitals themselves checked out to see if there is any contamination and we find, indeed, that there are trace elements, not huge elements, but trace elements of ricin, even a few anthrax spores, in eight major area hospitals.

Jonathan Fielding>> We've been asked a number of questions. One is would medical and support staff show up for work knowing the premises were "contaminated"? The answer is, part of that depends on how well they've been prepared and the kind of protective equipment and how well they can be assured that they'll be protected.

Mark Leap>> I think it's important that we undertake a massive public education program as it pertains to anthrax and ricin at this time. As we saw with the anthrax attacks in 2001, many people did not know that anthrax was not contagious and they believed that just having contact with other human beings was going to spread anthrax. The same is true about ricin. It is not contagious either.

Jonathan Fielding>> People want to know specifically what can I do? What can I do? Should I stay at home? Should I go to work? What's the risk of doing it? What are other people doing? That's the kind of information we have to provide and give them the best information we have and let them know exactly what we don't know and tell them that those are things we're working on.

Lee Baca>> In that regard, one of my great concerns in this county is that our hospital system can be overwhelmed, given enough casualties, given enough threats and contamination problems.

Jonathan Fielding>> I certainly agree with that. The issue of triaging tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of people who are concerned when they have a tickle in their throat. You know, do they have anthrax or ricin? That's really a very serious issue. We've dealt with it. Hospitals have triage systems set up. We have other triage systems, neighborhood triage systems, that can be set up, but it's going to be a huge problem.

Lee Baca>> My greatest fear is the limited medical services that will occur when the casualties get too large. Now I don't think we can build out that solution locally. That's why the de-mat teams federally will definitely have to come into play. But make no mistake about it. There is a limit to what we can do.

Val Zavala>> The entire group agrees that convincing the public beforehand to be prepared for an emergency, any emergency, would make handling this crisis enormously easier, but that's a challenge. Sandra Hutchens is with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office of Homeland Security.

Sandra Hutchens>> How do we capture the American public's imagination long enough to get the information out pre-event? To help with some of the things, we keep talking about self-evacuation. Several people have mentioned it and I think that one of my concerns is people that are going to get in their cars and we're going to have major, major problems in dealing with the situation.

But I really don't know the answer to how we do that, how we get peoples' attention to train them on what ricin can and cannot do, what anthrax can and cannot do, what a nuclear attack will mean. It's difficult to even get the public engaged enough to prepare for three days to be sheltered in place at home behind the disasters that we typically have here in the southland with earthquakes, fires and floods.

Val Zavala>> It is now Day Forty of the crisis. The group is handed one final page of information.

Brian Jenkins>> Having driven them up to that crisis where we have disrupted the infrastructure and patently disrupted medical services, we then take them out of the crisis on the fortieth day with a happy ending in which the perpetrators are apprehended, although the chief of this operation still has not been identified and remains at large.

Val Zavala>> So after ninety minutes of grappling with terrorist cells, anthrax, ricin, terrorist targets and contaminated hospitals, how did our group do?

Brian Jenkins>> They did extremely well. First of all, there's no doubt that they went into the simulation with some apprehension. We knew that was a scuttlebutt. They do engage in simulations like this all the time to practice for these events. They don't do so in front of television cameras or with newspaper reporters taking notes. That creates a different atmosphere.

So instead of a twenty-four hour drama with Jack Bauer running through the streets chasing the bad guys, we had something that looked more like a construction project. That is because southern California has had a lot of experience with earthquakes, wildfires, landslides, other kinds of disasters. We deal with disasters all the time. We tend to be ahead of the nation in developing a lot of these plans and agreements.

That's really what counter-terrorism is about. Counter-terrorism is not car chases. Counter-terrorism is often very pedestrian stuff. It's agreements to share intelligence. It's establishment of centers where you can bring together information from all sources, analyze it and disseminate it to the decision-makers. It's mechanisms in place for providing mutual assistance among law enforcement authorities, among the fire departments, among the emergency services. That's what counter-terrorism is really about.

Val Zavala>> How ready are we for a real terrorist attack? Jenkins says we as individuals can't rely solely on public officials, doctors, police and fire, that the smartest step we can take is to get ourselves ready for any emergency, but also remember that, although a terrorist attack is possible, it is far from the biggest risk we face day-to-day.

Brian Jenkins>> The average American has about a one in eight thousand chance of dying as a consequence of an automobile accident. An average American has about a one in eighteen thousand chance of being a victim of ordinary homicide. If we take a very short actuarial chart since 9/11, which would make insurance underwriters uncomfortable, but even including that event, the average American has about a one in five hundred thousand chance of dying as a consequence of a terrorist attack.

If, heaven forbid, a terrorist attack or a natural disaster occurred in my neighborhood, I know my role. I know what I am to do to take care of myself, my family and my neighbors. If we can make that the objective of homeland security, then I think we have made our nation unconquerable.

Val Zavala>> We'd love to know what you think. Are we ready? Can we ever be ready? You can post your thoughts and read excerpts from this program on two websites at kcet.org or latimes.com. I'm Val Zavala. Thanks for joining us for this special edition of Life and Times.

Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

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