I wasn’t entirely clear there. Just because I know what caused the power crisis in California a couple of years ago, doesn’t mean everyone else knows. I mean, this information didn’t come from the newspaper, but rather an obscure power industry trade journal.
So what happened? Many things, but the triggering event was the failure of a single power transmission line. Why? Insufficient preventive maintenance.
When power transmission lines get overloaded, they get hot. And hot wires sag. And when hot, sagging wires touch the scrub trees that grow up under the towers when basic maintenance is not done – BBZZTT! The whole line shorts out.
When the first transmission line failed, the load went to other lines. And when the load got to be too much, the other lines were shut down out of self-defense. (This shutdown is computer-controlled.) And to preserve the rest of the network, the power plants that were feeding those lines had to be shut down. (This shutdown is also automatic.)
And without the power those plants were providing, the base load needed to run California just wasn’t there. So the power companies had to go to the spot market – that is hydroelectric and gas-fired power – just to handle the night-time load, much less the day-time load.
That’s where Enron et al got involved. I’m not saying that Enron was blameless here – but the whole mess was not caused by Enron and their ilk. It was caused by a couple of West Coast power companies that were trying to shave a couple of points on their profit margin by skimping on basic maintenance.
So what I’m saying is, if someone took out the right dozen cross-country transmission lines, America would go dark within about 15 minutes.
<hijack>What’s the solution? Microgeneration. That’s where you and I have fuel cells in our basements, and sell the excess power back to the power companies. Why don’t we have this? Three reasons:
The power companies really don’t want the competion.
The lines we get power on are not suitable to sending power back; the infrastructure costs to add a second set of lines to every home are, shall we say, significant.
The command-and-control set up we have today is barely able to handle the existing power generators; adding millions of microgenerators would swamp the system.
</hijack>
For those who are surprised by the lack of terrorist activity since 9/11, I have two comments:
Terrorism isn’t all that terrifying if the element of surprise is missing - we’ve been expecting it and while we’re expecting it, it won’t happen. Alternatively, when it happens too much, it loses its punch - look at various countries where terrorism is a daily fact of life and is expected, prepared for, etc. A bomb goes off, killing people in a crowded shopping center - people are upset, it makes the news and … what? It’s not a whole lot different than daily murders here in the states - it almost becomes part of the background noise.
How many near attacks have been averted by intelligence agencies? We don’t know and may not for years.
As to the OP, I’m going with those proposing the small, high frequency, low-cost, low-tech approaches. Snipers, fires, small pipe bombs, and low-tech biotoxins (e-coli, even) in the right places to create maximum havoc.
I keep thinking about all the trucks roaming the countryside. Do YOU know what’s inside most if any of them? I sure don’t. Take a manageable number of medium size trucks, moderate amount of ANFO explosive, and drivers willing to martyr themselves in the middle of places like the Golden Gate Bridge, Lincoln Tunnel, Tampa Skyway Bridge, Callahan Tunnel and any number of other critical transport corridors and you’ve got yourself a terroist attack.
Hitting a significantly small town will make it hard to escape or blend in. They usually have one road in and one road out.
Also, you could possibly be identified before or after the hit as a stranger. Those small town folk can spot an outsider from a mile away. Just filling up for gas right outside the town could get you spotted by a cop, before or after the hit.
But if you’re not worried about escaping, then the one road isn’t an issue, though the recognition factor could be.
But to my mind, that’s why you’d go for the small- to mid-size cities. Knoxville, where I am, for example, rather than Atlanta. There are enough people here (and foreigners are somewhat common, with UT here) that most people wouldn’t stress about seeing someone new - I moved in August and didn’t have anyone look at me and say “I’ve never seen you before. You must be new in town”.
Now, if you were looking at larger cities…I’d go for the subways. I think a suicide bomber with explosives strapped to their bodies could cause some serious panic.
Urban Ranger- You would be amazed… REALLY REALLY amazed at how much military grade explosives there are out there on the black market.
My roomate, a former gangbanger (mid-echelon type) told me a tale of one of his crew showing up with a grenade. A real, live grenade. When he asked the guy about it, he was introduced to the guy who had sold it to him.
The guy had a crate of them. He also said that he could get any explosive needed with about a weeks notice.
Add to that the fact that there are hundreds of “how to” guides out there for making them from your kitchen, and the idea of explosives becomes a lot easier to imagine.
In the world of cell phones and such, co-ordinating such an activitiy is not a problem. The hardest part al Queda would have would be sneaking enough agents into the country, and even that wouldn’t be that hard.
Bridges. Folks, we have a whole branch of the military whose job is to fix bridges. Any bridges dropped would only be dropped long enough to get Combat Engineers out there to set up pontoon bridges.
I don’t think bombing Emergency Rooms would be a useful strategy. First of all, there’s too many of them. Secondly, there’s only one shift of people there; the other shifts would report to duty immediately. Thirdly, makeshift ER’s can be set up rather quickly (remember M.A.S.H.?) Fourthy (is that a word?), ER people are extraordinarily adaptable–at least the ones I work with. They could probably jury-rig a McDonalds into a passable ER with a little help. Fifthly (I’m on a roll), unless you took out the entire hospital, the supplies and the people you’d need to create another ER are readily available…and they’d already be there on the spot.
Nah…not ER’s.
I just hope the terrorists never fully comprehend how much importance we place on endangered species. What if they went around poisoning snail darters, spotted owls, and Lesser Appalachian Spotted Ferret Bats? Good Lord!
On the other hand, the bridges only need be down for five days or so before the East Coast runs out of food. And if the power’s out, and the cross-country telephone and Internet lines are out …
Yes, I know, we have helicopters and freighters and satellite communications. All of that would help prevent total chaos. But the point of the exercise is to demonstrate America’s vulnerability.
If we’re just looking for big explosions, I’d target America’s oil refineries. There’s only a handful, and they are very vulnerable. Where would we be without gasoline? No diesel? No jet fuel?
The best ideas I’ve seen so far on this thread are really about terror. Those who would nuke a city or attempt to kill as many people as they can wouldn’t really be inflicting terror, except for people living in big cities. They would be inflicting shock more than terror.
What scared us more? The twin towers collapsing and the pentagon burning or fear of going to our mail boxes? If I think the terrorists are just going to attack big obvious targets like skyscrapers, dams, and airports, I would just avoid the big obvious targets. But if I thought the terrorists would attack small grocery stores, malls, schools, BUSES, I would be afraid to leave the house. And if they started attacking homes and apartment complexes and apartment buildings, well I would be afraid to even stay home. I wouldn’t know where I could go that would be safe. So if the terrorists are using their brains and they are really going for terror rather than shock they will attack us where we live. They would attack small urban communities. And they would have to attack the large communities as well. But in the large communities they would attack us in our homes. Blow up apartment buildings and pull people out of their houses and shoot them or sniper them.
I believe the lack of Palenstine-style suicide bombings in the United States does indicate a manpower shortage on the part of our enemies. If they had the numbers, they would have used them by now.
I would appeal to Allah to send a crippling snowstorm upon the east coast of America, closing down Washington DC for days. Then they could raise their security level to “Code White”
Free Vacation tickets would be sent to their mayor.
Do you think the duct tape will help them out of THAT???
