‘Staying one step ahead of the bad guys’

With terrorism’s emergence as a global issue, the need to assess vulnerable components in security systems remains a necessity, according to John Sisario, an associate training specialist who recently gave a two-day Enhanced Threat and Risk Assessment Course to various representatives of agencies on Saipan and Tinian.

“You’ve always got to stay one step ahead of the bad guys, the terrorists,” he said yesterday. “[And] the way to do that is to make sure that the things that keep your island alive—the things that are important on your island—are well protected and you try to make them as secure as you can.”

About 31 individuals representing various government and private agencies took part in the course, conducted at the Pacific Islands Club Napu Room Tuesday and Wednesday.

The course focused on training first responders and others in identifying vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure, systems, facilities, and special events site to provide a more secure place for those occupying the sites as well as the entire community.

The course also focused on the importance of familiarity among various agencies for better handling of emergency situations.

“The worst thing that could happen to a community is when a terrorist incident or an incident involving weapons of [mass destruction] and the team responding to handle it had not worked together before and are coming together for the first time,” Sisario said, citing the importance of having a team comprising individuals from various agencies, including law enforcement, fire, and Emergency Medical Service, public health, ports authority, and public works personnel, among others.

“The best team that we can see going out to do assessments are folks from different disciplines focusing their eyes and their experience on a site and being able to point out what’s good or what’s a weakness [because] depending on experience, one discipline might not recognize something as a threat while another does. That’s why it’s important to have a multidiscipline team.”

Yesterday’s activities also included participants conducting assessments of seven sites, including the Commonwealth Health Center, the seaport, power plant, and a hotel, among others.

As an example, Sisario pointed out that many may not see the ventilation system as a threat when it actually is.

“If there’s easy access, it’s very easy for somebody to put some chemical into that and it would spread and poison many people,” he said. “They [participants] know that if they see something like that, then they can make a recommendation to the facility that they might want to secure the vent in some manner to make it impossible or harder for the bad guys to access it and introduce a chemical, biological agent, or even a radiological agent.”

“They’ll never look at a building the same way,” he added.

Sisario said the course also provided training on identifying how different physical security components work together to enhance a security system.

“Surveillance cameras, fences, and lights should all work together to enhance the system, instead of work against it. If you don’t have lights pointed out the right way, they [wouldn’t be] able to pick something up,” he said. “We teach them to recognize those and how to make recommendations.”

Sisario was accompanied by adjunct instructor Dan Breda. Both work for the Texas Engineering Extension Service under Texas A&M University, and facilitate the course for the National Emergency Response and Rescue Training Center.

“Hopefully we were of some service and that they’ll be able to apply this and make Saipan safer,” Sisario said.

Hotel Association of the Northern Mariana Islands president Lynn Knight was among the participants, and echoed that similar trainings would be recommended for HANMI members to make the islands’ hotels safer.

“The nature of the tourism business is that it’s very friendly, welcoming, and inviting, but at the same time, we need to look at security issues because of terrorism in the world,” she said. “The best thing we can do is get training from professionals and cascade it to our members and train our employees.”

Further, since each hotel is different, she said each would need its own vulnerability assessment.

“This is about getting ready for the possible occurrence of terrorism. Hopefully we don’t have it, but only the paranoid survive,” she said. “We’re doing all we can to find out as much as we can about how to protect our facilities and our destination.”

The course was sponsored by the Emergency Management Office, with funding from the Office of Domestic Preparedness.