Our Awful Situation

Report finds Boise most vulnerable in the West to attack

Posted by Charlie Kilo on April 5th, 2008

What happens when you place mathematical theory before common sense? Via MSNBC:

Quick: Name the Western U.S. city most vulnerable to a terrorist attack. Is it Los Angeles, with its crowded roads that make quick escape impossible? San Francisco and its iconic bridge? Or Seattle with its Space Needle and busy port?

Try Boise, Idaho, with its, um, potatoes.

A new study funded largely by the Department of Homeland Security ranked 132 American cities according to vulnerability to terrorist attacks. Boise was the only city in the western half of the country to make the top 10.

It came from four years of work and a series of mathematical formulas developed by Walter W. Piegorsch, a professor at the University of Arizona, with help from Susan Cutter at the University of South Carolina and Frank Hardisty at Pennsylvania State University. The study was published in December by Risk Analysis, a well-regarded journal.

The researchers assessed the vulnerability of each city to a terrorist attack based on three things: socioeconomics, infrastructure, and geophysical hazards such as the potential for flooding or fire.

The analysis measured not whether a city would make an attractive target to a terrorist but rather how well it could withstand an attack, Piegorsch said.

“This wasn’t a question of what places a terrorist wants,” Piegorsch said. “The targetability is not an issue here; it’s the vulnerability if they were targeted.”

The researchers color-coded that vulnerability, assigning green to areas with low vulnerability to a terrorist incident and resulting casualties, yellow to those with high vulnerability but low casualties, and red to those with high marks in both vulnerability and casualties.

Sounds like more wasteful spending on fancy color coding charts and worthless studies by the department of Homeland Insecurity.

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Our Awful Situation

Report finds Boise most vulnerable in the West to attack

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