The shock of the September 11 airplane attacks has made the improbable and the catastrophic suddenly seem possible. Crop dusters have been grounded for fears of a biological attack. Guards are posted at many city reservoirs. Trucks are being inspected on their way into New York. But some scenarios are more likely than others. That's why we've assembled this guide to help you sort out the threats for yourself and see what precautions people are taking.
The possibility of any of these things happening is extremely remote. Even assembling the needed biological or chemical agents would require far more organization, money and expertise than was evident on September 11. But, in the interest of being prepared for the unlikely and also calming down any unnecessary fears, here's what's being done, and what you can do. DIAGNOSING THE RISK
From TIME Magazine, October 8, 2001
By David Bjerklie, Christine Gorman and Alice Park
In the three weeks since the Sept. 11 attacks, Americans have become increasingly concerned that the next one might be even worse. In the Time/cnn poll taken last week, 53% of those surveyed feared a chemical or biological attack; 23% a nuclear strike. Among terrorism experts, however, the focus has shifted from a single large-scale assault — which would be difficult to pull off — to a series of smaller attacks that could be just as damaging to the U.S. economy and public morale. How serious are these threats? What form might they take? The best guesses of the experts consulted by Time offer both reassurance and fresh cause for alarm.
Here's a look at what form a possible future attack could take...
BIOCHEMICAL ATTACK
From TIME Magazine, October 8, 2001
By David Bjerklie, Christine Gorman and Alice Park
Smallpox
It doesn't take an exotic virus like Ebola to transform the U.S. into a hot zone. A single case of smallpox could put the entire nation at risk. The smallpox virus is highly contagious and would spread quickly because Americans are not vaccinated. Routine inoculations were halted in 1972. People vaccinated before 1972 lost most of their immunity within 10 years.
A terrorist who wanted to launch a smallpox attack, however, would probably have a very hard time getting hold of the virus. Smallpox was eradicated in 1980. Officially, only two stores of the virus exist, for research purposes, in secure locations in the U.S. and Russia. There may be covert stashes in Iraq, North Korea and Russia, but these countries would be reluctant to release them, fearing a smallpox epidemic among their own unvaccinated people. Even if a terrorist were successful in obtaining the virus, his plans could backfire: smallpox is so contagious that the first victims are likely to be the members of his own terrorist cell.
Anthrax
Many bacterial agents can be used as bioweapons, including Clostridium botulinum (botulism) and Yersinia pestis (plague). But anthrax stands out because its spores are particularly hardy; they are resistant to sunlight, heat and disinfectant, and can remain active in soil and water for years. Anthrax occurs naturally in both wild and domestic animals‹including cattle, sheep and camels. Infection from direct contact with affected animals is fatal in 20% of cases. If inhaled, however, anthrax spores cause death in almost 90% of the time.
Yet manufacturing sufficient quantities of any bacteria in a stable form is a technical and scientific challenge; plague bugs, for example, degrade within hours when exposed to the sun, and anthrax spores tend to clump together in humid conditions. The Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo sprayed anthrax and botulism eight times over parts of Tokyo without effect.
Despite all the attention being given crop dusters, using one to spread germs is not as easy as it sounds. The planes are designed to spray pesticides in heavy, concentrated streams, whereas bioweapons are ideally scattered in a fine mist over as large an area as possible. The nozzles in crop dusters are best suited to discharging relatively large particles — 100 microns in diameter — not tiny one-micron specks of bacteria.
Sarin
Unlike biological agents, which are living organisms that require proper conditions to survive, chemical weapons such as the nerve gases sarin and VX are relatively easy to acquire and stockpile. Chemicals are difficult to manufacture in sufficient quantities for a large-scale attack, however; more likely are isolated assaults such as the 1995 sarin attack on a Tokyo subway that injured thousands and killed 12.
WATER
From TIME Magazine, October 8, 2001
By David Bjerklie, Christine Gorman and Alice Park
Reservoirs
Poisoning your enemy's well is an ancient tradition, but would-be terrorists would find it extremely hard to inflict widespread casualties through our water supply. Chlorine in treated water kills most microbes, and huge quantities of chemical toxins would have to be dumped into a reservoir to make many people sick, let alone kill them. (A U.N. study estimated that it would take 10 tons of potassium cyanide.) Drinking water might be threatened locally, however, if someone managed to tap the pipe going into a building or neighborhood or infiltrate a water-treatment facility. With this threat in mind, municipal water authorities have stepped up security.
Dams
If poisoning the water supply doesn't work, terrorists might try to cut it off or disrupt it. On an even grander scale, they might blow up a dam, causing widespread flooding damage downstream. Compounding the impact would be the loss of hydroelectric-power generation. With security beefed up at major dams across the country, however, especially at landmark behemoths such as Hoover and Grand Coulee dams, it would take a very determined effort to carry out such an attack.
HAZARDOUS MATERIALS
From TIME Magazine, October 8, 2001
By David Bjerklie, Christine Gorman and Alice Park
Chemical plants
some 850,000 facilities in the U.S. handle hazardous chemicals. Many substances that have benign industrial uses, such as metal cleaning or photo developing, can in theory be turned into dangerous weapons. But gaining access to plants, either for sabotage or to get raw materials, is difficult. Employees handling hazardous materials undergo security background checks, and chemical manufacturers across the country last week were double-checking their employee rolls. Since Sept. 11, most facilities have barred outside visitors and allowed only authorized personnel to enter.
Trucking companies
dangerous chemicals are most vulnerable to interception while they are being transported. Today 2.5 million Americans have commercial driver's licenses to carry fuels and other hazardous materials. Truckers must pass two tests: the federally mandated 30-question multiple-choice test (states can add more questions) to obtain a commercial vehicle license and a separate test on the procedures for safely handling hazardous substances. After the arrest of about 20 people suspected of fraudulently obtaining haz-mat licenses, chemical companies tightened their transport policies, assigning two drivers to every vehicle and using satellite tracking systems to monitor haulers from pickup to drop-off.
FOOD
From TIME Magazine, October 8, 2001
By David Bjerklie, Christine Gorman and Alice Park
Salmonella
as oregon's rajneeshee cult demonstrated in 1984, it is not difficult to set off a wave of food poisonings. Indeed, gastroenteritis caused by natural contamination and careless food handling afflicts millions and results in 5,000 deaths each year. The Rajneeshees considered a number of different viruses and bacteria, including those that cause hepatitis and typhus, but decided for their purposes (disrupting the outcome of a local election) on a strain of salmonella that would be debilitating but not fatal. Salmonella poisonings tend to be localized. With proper hygiene, the bacterium is not particularly contagious.
E. coli
an even easier bug to obtain is the familiar intestinal parasite E. coli. Naturally occurring outbreaks of E. coli, typically the result of fecal contamination in everything from hamburgers to swimming pools, sicken hundreds of thousands of Americans each year. In New York City this spring, a man was arrested after he was spotted spraying what turned out to be feces-laden water over the contents of a midtown salad bar (fortunately, no one got sick). A far more virulent strain of the bacterium called O157:H7 is sometimes fatal, but identifying and isolating the right strain is beyond the technical capabilities of most terrorists.
Foot-and-mouth disease
a terrorist attack aimed at crops and livestock would be less dramatic but might cause more disruption in the long run. Such attempts are not unheard of. In World War II, Britain accused Germany of dropping small, cardboard bombs filled with beetle pests on English potato fields, and in the 1980s Tamil militants threatened to target Sri Lankan tea and rubber plantations with plant pathogens. Perhaps the most worrisome threat to U.S. agriculture is foot-and-mouth disease, which can spread with astonishing speed in sheep, cattle and swine. Not seen in this country since 1929, the disease is harmless to humans but renders farm animals economically worthless. The U.S. could be forced to destroy much of its own livestock, as Great Britain had to do earlier this year.
EXPLOSIVES
From TIME Magazine, October 8, 2001
By David Bjerklie, Christine Gorman and Alice Park
Car, truck and backpack bombs
exotic weapons get a lot of attention, but conventional explosives and suicide bombers in pizza parlors, discothèques and shopping malls can spread terror with stunning effectiveness. Fertilizer bombs like the one that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Okla., in 1995 could wreak havoc with bridges, tunnels and buildings. Nuclear-power and chemical-manufacturing plants make even more horrifying targets. The 1984 leak at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, may have killed 3,000. Estimates of the final death toll from the 1986 explosion in the Chernobyl nuclear plant run as high as 30,000.
Nuclear weapons
the ultimate nightmare would be terrorists in the U.S. wielding nuclear weapons. For this reason, the ability to create — or worse, steal or buy — weapons-grade plutonium has long been an issue of great concern and international intrigue. Fortunately, the practical difficulties in acquiring precisely the right materials, not to mention the engineering know-how to jerry-build a nuclear device successfully, makes this type of threat highly unlikely.
SCENARIOS & SAFEGUARDS
BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS
Excerpted from "The Next Threat?" TIME, 10/01/2001
Germ warfare has been around since at least the Middle Ages, when armies besieging a city would catapult corpses infected with the black plague over the walls. Today the bugs authorities most fear are anthrax (a bacterium) and smallpox (a virus). Both are highly lethal: the former kills nearly 90% of its victims, the latter some 30%. Anthrax is not communicable; smallpox, on the other hand, can be transmitted with horrifying ease from one person to another. "The feelings of uncertainty, of who is infected, of who will get infected, are the main advantages of biowarfare," says Stephen Morse of the Columbia University School of Public Health.
During the cold war, both the U.S. and the Soviet Union began developing anthrax as a biological weapon. Today 17 nations are believed to have biological weapons programs, many of which involve anthrax. Officially, the only sources of smallpox are small quantities in the labs of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and at Vector in Koltsovo, Russia. But experts believe that Russia, Iraq and North Korea have all experimented with the virus and that significant secret stashes remain. Even more worrisome are reports that Russia used genetic engineering to try to make anthrax and smallpox more lethal and resistant to antibiotics and vaccines. (The U.S. put a similar program on hold.)
Why not just vaccinate every American against every possible germ-warfare agent? That would be impractical, if not impossible, and the side effects of the inoculations would pose a significant health risk. Instead, says Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, we should strengthen the country's public health system. After Sept. 11, hospitals in New York City were asked to report any outbreaks of unusual symptoms. Health experts know that in the event of biological attack, the earlier an epidemic is detected, the easier it is to contain.
Experts in antiterrorism share their concern. At the turn of the past century, says Brian Jenkins of the Rand Corp., epidemics of diseases like yellow fever and cholera kept health workers on their toes. Now, after a decade of cutbacks, "our ability to treat large numbers of casualties has been reduced," he says. "The notion of reinvesting to create a muscular public health system is not a bad idea, even if there is no terrorism."
General Safeguards
- All cropdusters have been temporarily grounded.
- The CDC maintains and can expand a national pharmaceutical stockpile with antibiotics, vaccines and antidotes for many biological attacks.
- You can stock up on a few emergency items, including bottled water, storable food, batteries, flashlight, antibiotics, a portable radio and face mask.
ANTHRAX
Nightmare Scenario: Untrue
Anthrax is a deadly but non-contagious soil bacteria. The nightmare scenario found in a chain email currently making its way around the Internet states:
100 grams of anthrax properly dispersed downwind over Washington, D.C., for example, could kill between 150,000 and three million people in the surrounding areas.
The reality is more benign; the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies says this scenario would actually require 100 kilograms and only those directly exposed would be infected. Hospitals would initially notice an epidemic of cold and flu-like symptoms, deteriorating into severe breathing problems and then death in those not treated with common antibiotics.
Safeguards
- Anthrax is not contagious. It requires direct exposure, which is difficult to effect on a mass scale.
- Anthrax is hard to produce safely. Japan's Aum Shinrikyo cult built high-tech labs but failed repeatedly to grow significant quantities of active spores. The Soviet Union, which is reported to have stockpiled thousands of gallons during the Cold War, had its own production problems, resulting in one 1979 accident that killed 68 people. Iraq armed missiles with anthrax in the Gulf War, but experts have noted that Iraq's biological arsenal probably would have been militarily ineffective because it was small and inefficiently organized.
- There's a vaccine. Special units of the U.S. military are inoculated. It's not currently available to civilians. BioPort, the company that produces the vaccine, tells callers "Every dose is being used or reserved for the American armed forces." According to reports, the U.S. government is now looking at creating a national stockpile.
- Dr. Luciana Borio of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies says that doctor education is key, so that emergency rooms can detect anthrax outbreaks and begin antibiotic treatment. Even if individuals store Israeli-style anthrax kits or antibiotics, they should still get treated at a hospital. Gas masks are only useful if there is advance warning.
More Information
SMALLPOX
Hypothetical Exercise
In June 2001 anti-terrorism authorities held war games, called Dark Winter, to simulate a deliberate aerosol release of smallpox in three U.S. states. Such high level players as former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn and James R. Woolsey, former director of the CIA participated, and did not fare well: In the scenario, highly-contagious disease spread to 25 states and 15 other countries within two weeks as the players failed to establish effective quarantines and current vaccine stockpiles proved inadequate.
The Dark Winter exercise has alerted public health officials of the need to promote early detection and the importance of isolating infected individuals, monitoring contacts, and instituting a selective vaccination program.
Safeguards
- In 1980 the World Health Assembly declared that smallpox has been eradicated. Only two labs in the world officially store smallpox samples, in Atlanta and Koltsovo, Russia. It is possible that these are the only remaining samples.
- The smallpox vaccine is effective, even up to four days after exposure. Fifteen million doses of smallpox vaccine exist in the U.S. The CDC recently ordered 40 million doses of a new vaccine that will be available in 2004.
More Information
BOTULISM
Likelihood: Very Unlikely
In March 2001 the Journal of the American Medical Association published a report speculating about the effects of an aerial spraying of anthrax. The same article named intentional contamination of the U.S. food supply as another bio-terrorism concern.
The report also pointed out that Aum Shinrikyo, the terrorist group responsible for the release of sarin in a Tokyo, Japan, subway station in 1995, dispersed aerosols of anthrax and botulism throughout Tokyo on at least 8 occasions. For unclear reasons, the attacks failed to produce illness.
Safeguards
- Botulism is not contagious. It requires direct exposure, which is difficult to effect on a mass scale.
- Botulism is treatable. In the past 50 years the proportion of patients with botulism who die has fallen from about 50% to 8% because of improved medical care in intensive care units.
- The CDC maintains the national botulism anti-toxin supply, and offers clinical consultation around the clock to physicians. A network exists to identify all incidences of botulism. New technology may be useful in quickly expanding the supply.
- A botulism vaccine is available. Widespread vaccination, however, would end medical uses of the toxin for treating migraine headaches, back pain and cerebral palsy.
More Information
PLAGUE
Likelihood: Not Very Likely
During the Cold War both the U.S. and the Soviet Union worked to develop methods of aerosol-releasing (spraying) plague bacteria into the atmosphere. A terrorist could do this with a crop duster airplane, a spray bottle or a variety of other methods. A 1970 World Health Organization report estimated that a city of 5 million sprayed with 50 kilograms of plague bacteria would suffer 36,000 dead.
Safeguards
- Plague is almost 100% fatal if not treated within a day of the onset of symptoms — but if it's caught early enough, modern antibiotics are quite effective. There's a vaccine available for bubonic plague (the "Black Death"), and a vaccine for pneumonic plague is currently under development.
- Plague is extremely contagious (it's spread through sneezes of victims as well as bites from infected fleas), so isolating victims is an essential step in stopping the spread of the disease.
More Information
EBOLA VIRUS
Likelihood: Extremely Unlikely
A terrorist could deliberately infect himself with the Ebola virus and travel to a major city, seeking to spread the disease to its citizens (via sexual contact, sharing needles). Most people infected with Ebola die within a week, and suffer obvious, debilitating symptoms (including profuse bleeding from major body openings); thus any terrorist's "window of opportunity" to infect others would be brief. Given its gruesome symptoms and the relative difficulty of transmission, Ebola is perhaps more valuable to bioterrorists as a threat than as an actual weapon.
Safeguards
- Ebola can spread from person to person, but only via the blood or other body fluids of an infected individual. Most victims to date have caught the virus while caring for other Ebola victims in unsanitary hospital settings.
- There is currently no known cure for Ebola; scientists combating the disease focus on educational prevention, such as raising the standards of hygiene in developing-world hospitals.
More Information
VACCINES
Preventing a disease is always better than having to cure it,
but most of these vaccines were developed before bioterrorism
emerged as a threat, and few are widely available
BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS: AVAILABILITY OF VACCINES |
DISEASE
|
SYMPTOMS
|
VACCINE'S EFFECTIVENESS |
AVAILABILITY
|
Anthrax |
First signs of inhaled anthrax may resemble those of a common cold; then breathing problems, hemorrhage, edema and shock. Untreated, about 90% of cases are fatal |
An early version of the U.S. vaccine was 93% successful in protecting against the disease. Full treatment involves six shots followed by an annual booster |
Only to military personnel and others whose jobs put them at high risk; approved only for healthy adults between the ages of 18 and 65 |
Pneumonic Plague |
Fever, chills, weakness, shortness of breath, cough with bloody sputum. If not treated early, rapid onset of septic shock and death |
May prevent bubonic plague, but that is not the form of the disease that would likely result from a bioweapon attack. Pneumonic plague should be treated with antibiotics |
Recommended only for people who work with the plague pathogen, Yersinia pestis, or in plague-infested areas |
Smallpox |
High fever, fatigue, severe headache and backache, followed by a characteristic rash and deep, round lesions. Highly infectious |
Given prior to exposure, provides almost 100% protection against the disease. Still effective up to four days after exposure |
Extremely limited. Not recommended since 1980, when disease was eradicated. The U.S. has a few million doses; 40 million more on order |
Botulism |
Blurred vision, slurred speech, difficulty swallowing, progressive muscle weakness that spreads from head to toe, paralysis, respiratory failure |
Believed effective against five of the seven types of botulism toxin but still being tested |
Only on an experimental basis for those believed at high risk of exposure. The standard treatment is to administer antitoxin after exposure |
Tularemia |
Abrupt onset of high fever, followed by pneumonia, pleuritis and systemic infection. Can lead to respiratory failure, shock or death. Highly infectious |
Provides partial protection against infection by inhalation or direct contact. Antibiotics are the treatment of choice |
Only given to people who work routinely with tularemia bacteria. Not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration |
From TIME Magazine, October 8, 2001 |
BE PREPARED
FOOD & WATER
Most of the stockpiling suggestions here are commonsense preparations for any sort of unexpected emergency. So don't blow all your money on a fancy gas mask being bid up on eBay. There are more useful things to get, and even die-hard survivalists rank gas masks low on their priority list. Higher up:
FOOD
Storable Food
If your electricity goes the food in your refrigerator won't last long. Canned food is fine, but it actually does go bad after one or two years. If you want to just stick something in a closet and forget about it, freeze dried food can stay good for one to two decades (although the selection isn't overly appetizing).
Canned Foods
Canned foods have a relatively short shelf-life of a year or two, although Hormel Corned Beef is said to have an indefinite shelf-life. You can see a list of shelf-lives for many products at Y2K kitchen, a site devoted to the last time everyone was talking about these issues.
MREs
MREs (Meals Ready To Eat) are used in the military to give soldiers warm meals without too much preparation. Nothing to add, just heat and eat (or just eat). You can buy them at Army surplus stores like LoadUp, but the best supply we’ve found is at TheEpicenter.com, which offers such entrees as pasta with vegetables in Alfredo Sauce and Beef Teriyaki. The shelf-life of MREs varies depending on the storage temperature; you can keep them at 120 degrees for about a month, but at 50 degrees they'll last around eight years.
Freeze Dried and Dehydrated
Freeze Dried food is a meal that has had all the water sucked out. Add water and once again it's food. Freeze Dried foods have a shelf-life of at least 10 years, although some are supposed to last as long as 20. Dehydrated foods have a little moisture in them, but it is reduced so that they will last 5 to 8 years. Dehydrated foods aren't complete meals, but staple goods like cheese and eggs, so you'll need to prepare them. Google has a good directory of sites selling freeze-dried food.
Food Storage
If you want to make and store your own food the most popular choice is the Pump'N'Seal, which can be used to vacuum seal food in jars or Ziplock bags. TheEpicenter.com also offers oxygen absorbers that will keep down the oxygen content in a food container. Items like uncooked beans and spaghetti can last for 8 to 10 years in an airtight container. For more information you can read a summary at Bowman’s Brigade.
WATER
It's always a good idea to have spare water around: even if you don't get hit by a disaster, your plumbing may break down some day. Fill up a few soda bottles with water, or buy a 55-gallon drum if you prefer. You can find storage drums at places like SouthSummit.com If you have water of suspect quality you can boil it or put a little bleach in it (a couple of drops per quart or get a water distilling kit, which boils water into steam which condenses and then drips into a container, leaving the impurities behind.
LIGHT & POWER
LIGHT
If the lights go out you'll need a flashlight. The most important thing is, remember where you put it. There are all sorts; The Epicenter.com has one you wear like a ring, and you can find a wide variety at Flashlights.com. Just make sure you have plenty of batteries. And maybe a candle with matches.
POWER
There are all sorts of devices to keep the power flowing. You can charge your handheld computers and cell phones with the instant chemical charger from Electric-fuel.
Surge Protectors
Power outages (and lightning strikes) can also result in surges of electricity that can cause permanent damage to electronics and other equipment. Power strips, surge protectors and voltage regulators are designed to filter these spikes. APC, the best known name, has a Surge Protection Selector to recommend company products. Some geeks, burned in the past by surges, refuse to plug any electronics directly into the wall without a surge protector. (See APC Power Event Definitions for more on brownouts (aka "sags), blackouts, spikes, surges and noise.)
Uninterruptible Power Supply
These power protection systems are designed to tide you over through brief power outages, usually just long enough to safely exit or backup computer work. The batteries won't keep your fridge running but they're perfect if you need time to send one last email. So-called smart models can run backup scripts on your Windows PC. You might also want to consider one for a fish tank.
If you think the electricity might be out a long, long time, there are also solar lights and solar battery chargers, and you can even get a diesel generator.
COMMUNICATIONS
In an emergency you'll need a portable radio to keep track of what's going on. You can buy radios that are powered by cranking them, such as one made by Freeplay. Solar/Dynamo makes a radio/flashlight that has a hand crank, a rechargeable battery and a solar power cell. Crankngo.com also has a radio/flashlight that uses solar or a crank.
You'll also need to communicate to the world, so keep your cell phone handy or at least have spare change for a payphone.
To get you up and running after a disaster, make sure you have your computer backed up on a portable hard drive or a portable storage medium. Some people make a point of storing back-ups at a separate "off-site" location.
FIRST AID
First-Aid Kit
For any accidents it's good to have a few medical supplies. You can buy a first-aid kit, but once again it's not difficult to put together your own. Just go into a drugstore and grab a few things. A good first aid checklist can be found at the insurance site Insweb. A little more controversial is a 10-day supply of antibiotics if you can talk a doctor into prescribing a private stash to be used after a phone consultation.
72-Hour Kit
For extended emergencies you might want to keep a 72-hour kit, which is a container filled with enough stuff to keep you alive for three days. You can buy one, but you can also put together your own. BePrepared.com has an extensive list of the necessities, including games for your children.
GAS MASKS
Face Masks
In New York a lot of people bought face masks from their local hardware stores to deal with particles in the air. The more expensive ones filter out more particles: A N100 or P100 mask will do more than an N95 or P95, although they still filter out a good deal. They won't do much about a biological attack in your neighborhood but can help if you're 30 miles away from one. QCSupply has a good assortment of masks.
Gas Masks
The September 11 attacks led to a run on gas masks, most of which sold out in the first week. Don't feel too bad. Unlike obvious provisions such as food and medicine, gas masks are only useful in very specific instances. And even then there is unlikely to be enough advance warning to put one on. Nevertheless, the most important factors are a snug, airtight fit and a properly installed filter.
There are half-masks that just cover the mouth, but it's a good idea to protect your eyes. Some filters are specialized, filtering out something specific like chemical gasses or nuclear dust. If you want to protect yourself from the most possibilities you'll need an NBC mask, which filters Nuclear dust, Biological entities and Chemical gasses and aerosols. At the newsgroup misc.survivalism there are big arguments over which gas mask is the best, but in the end it seems to be a matter of which one feels the best when you put it on. There are also other considerations; one guy didn't like the US Army M17 mask because he said it made firing a rifle more difficult. You can buy a gas mask designed for civilians for $25 to $35, like the popular Israeli Gas Mask (currently selling on Ebay for $75 and up) although there are $200 military masks which have features like straw adapters so you don’t have to take them off to sip water.
When buying a gas mask the most important thing is to check the expiration dates of the filters and the age of the masks itself. You'll need to check for leaks. One way is to get someone to dip a Q-tip in some banana oil, then have them wave it around your head while you're wearing the mask. If you smell banana then you don't want the mask.
According to Maine Military, an Army surplus store, a gas mask won't do you the slightest bit of good. Without knowing what chemicals are in the air and how often your filter needs to be changed, the mask is useless. Until September 11, Main Military mainly sold masks to kids who would use them as Halloween costumes or adapt them for use in smoking marijuana.
Supplied Air Respirators
Gas Masks won't work if there's not enough oxygen in the air, so the next step up is the Supplied Air Respirator. This is a hood that completely covers the head and a tube that runs to an oxygen tank. You can find one for $500 or so. The EPA has more on these respirators.
Vapor Proof Suits
One problem with gas masks is they don't protect the rest of your body, and chemicals can be absorbed through the skin. To protect against that you can get a supplied air respirator with a full body suit. You would need a vapor proof suit, which would run you around $1300. This is the kind of setup used by people who have to go into leaking nuclear power plants. In an emergency you'd probably be dead before you got the suit on, but if you want to feel you're as prepared as humanly possible this is definitely the way to go.
RESOURCES
Time.com
· Bioterrorism: The Next Threat?
TIME Magazine
September 24, 2001
· Agents of Death
TIME Magazine
September 24, 2001
CNN .com
· WHO Warns on Germ Attack
September 26, 2001
Other Resources on the Web
General
· PBS Frontline: Plague War
Companion website for the Frontline program about biological weapons and their history.
· CDC: Agent List
Helpful listing of biological, chemical and other agents that are considered to be threats.
· World Health Organization
Read the worldwide WHO warning about biological threats.
Anthrax
· CDC Anthrax FAQ
General information and frequently asked questions about Anthrax
· DoD website for Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program
Official Anthrax Immunization site (Flash required)
· Center for Civilian Biodefense Study — Anthrax Report
Helpful fact sheet from the Johns Hopkins Center with links to other information about biological threats
Botulism
· CDC Botulism FAQ
General information and frequently asked questions about Botulism
· WebMD: Botulism
Facts about botulism and the botulinum toxin.
· Center for Civilian Biodefense Study — Botulism Report
Helpful fact sheet from the Johns Hopkins Center with links to other information about biological threats
Ebola
· CDC Ebola Factsheet
General information and frequently asked questions about the ebola virus.
· World Health Organization Fact Sheet: Ebola
Plague
· CDC Plague Homepage
General information and frequently asked questions about pneumonic plague.
· Discovery: The Black Plague
Follow the rat and learn about the history of bubonic plague
· Center for Civilian Biodefense Study — Plague Report
Helpful fact sheet from the Johns Hopkins Center with links to other information about plague threats
Sarin
· EPA Emergency First Aid Treatment Guide for Sarin
Text document that outlines Environmental Protection Agency guidelines for sarin exposure
· The Why Files
The Nerve of this Gas
Smallpox
· CDC Smallpox Page
General information and frequently asked questions about smallpox
· New Yorker: The Demon in the Freezer
Article on smallpox as terrorist threat from July 12, 1999
· Center for Civilian Biodefense Study — Smallpox Report
Helpful fact sheet from the Johns Hopkins Center with links to other information about biological threats
VX
· Material Safety Data Sheet‹VX Nerve Gas
Infomrational fact sheet with emergency procedures and precautions
· NATO Chemical Agent Casualties Field Manual
· FEMA Overview — VX
Instructions on what to do when encountering VX.
ON Magazine Gear Reviews
Alternative Power Source
· Juice Up Dead Gadgets on the Go
Electric Fuel's Instant Power Charger
Laptops
· The SUV of Laptops
· Apple iBook is Elegant, Affordable Laptop
Communications
· A Cell Phone That Can Talk to Satellites
Qualcomm phone, Globalstar System
· Trendy Timeport Beeper is a PDA, Too
Timeport 935
· Sleekest Wireless Internet Is From RIM Blackberry
Blackberry
· Seamless Palm-Phone Combo from Kyocera
Kyocera Smartphone
· Cellular Browsing
Motorola StarTac 7860
· The Cordless That Acts Like a Cellphone
Engenius phone
· Girl and Boy Toys: Cybiko
GPS
· GPS is My Copilot
Various GPS devices
· Where You At?
Magellan 750NAV
· Pharos Offers GPS Navigation for PocketPC
Pharos IGPS-i80
Gadgets
· ExactSet Clock Sets Itself
ExactSet Clock
Data Storage
· Peerless Equals One Hundred Zip Disks
Peerless
|