USU police stress emergency preparedness
As the United States sits on the brink of war with Iraq, millions of Americans are preparing themselves for the possibility of a terrorist attack on American soil.
The cover of the Feb. 24 issue of Time magazine features a person covered in duct tape, an allusion to recent government suggestions that an individual using plastic sheeting and duct tape to seal himself in a room could remain safe from a biological or chemical attack for multiple hours.
The Time cover story says hardware stores on the East Coast cannot seem to keep enough duct tape in stock to meet customer demand.
Has there been an increase in the demand for emergency products in Cache Valley, though?
“We’re selling to people who are storage-conscious year round,” said Ralph Roylance, owner of Smithfield Implement in Smithfield.
Roylance said duct tape has not been a top-selling item in his store recently, but products such as grain mills, water containers and rechargeable spotlights have been difficult to keep in stock.
“We’ve found quite a big increase in the sale of those in the past week,” he said.
Officials at Home Depot in Logan declined to comment on the amount of emergency products that had been sold recently by the store, but a Home Depot cashier said she had seen an increase in the number of customers purchasing duct tape.
Roylance said there has not been a significant increase in the sale of duct tape and plastic sheeting in his store, and that may be because the area is not a large target for terrorist actions.
Mark Larsen, a former Utah State University student on sabbatical, said he does not feel threatened by terrorism.
“I guess you can’t rule out the possibility of terrorism here in Utah, but I feel safe in assuming it would be very unlikely,” Larsen said. “Terrorists want to make a statement, and Utah does not have the population concentration to make that statement.”
Many Cache Valley residents have the impression that the only threat of terrorism comes from the international stage. However, Lt. Steve Milne of the USU Police Department says terrorism can come from other areas, and preparation is required.
“Our problem may not be an international-type terrorist,” he said. “The university has been the subject of terrorist attacks before.”
Milne said he recalled in 1992, animal liberation groups targeted a USU research facility in Millville and caused more than $100,000 in damage. He said the group apparently had plans to attack the Natural Resources Building on campus, as well.
“It was by fluke that their device they planted in the Natural Resources Building didn’t go off,” Milne said. “Had that gone, the damage and potential threat to life … who knows what could have been?”
USU is in a continuing process of evaluating and rewriting its operations plans on what would happen if a terrorism-related event occurs, Milne said, but part of the difficulty is ascertaining where it may come from.
“We’re at the control of whomever the terrorist is. He decides what, he decides when, he decides how,” Milne said. “We can make it as difficult as possible for them to be able to do that.”
Sgt. Lynn Wright of the USU Police Department said one of the best methods of preparation for a terrorist attack, or any incident, is having a plan and being personally prepared to care for yourself.
“Plan on being able to take care of yourself for a while,” Wright said. “If we have an incident with mass casualties, we know that our paramedics, our fire, our police, our first responders are going to be overwhelmed, and people are going to have to get on their own for a while.
“You’re not going to be able to call 911 and expect an ambulance to be at your door in five minutes; it’s not going to happen.”
Wright said he recommends everyone has a 72-hour kit prepared. He said it would be a good idea if students started a program similar to a neighborhood watch on campus to report anything that seems suspicious.
While the threat of terrorist activity may not be as high in Cache Valley as in New York City, the basic preparations for an incident are the same as they would be for an earthquake or any other emergency-type event, Wright said.
“These recommendations are nothing new with the terrorism thing,” Wright said. “It’s been sound judgment for years.”
–str@cc.usu.edu