Stephanie Flanders writes an economic blog for BBC News. I was thinking about the economic implications of the swine flu but my efforts would have paled compared to Stephanie's piece.
The news is saturating all of their air time and print with stories about swine flu and it easy to begin to tune it all out. I don't think the current outbreak will become as widespread as the 1918 outbreak, I do think some planning is in order.
Any pandemic illness is indiscriminate on who and when it strikes. An outbreak may spread quickly or burnout. Regardless, the impact to a community can manifest in many different ways.
Workers may stay home if they become sick but are certain to stay home if a child becomes sick. There is no way to predict when a particular employee may have to stay home or for how long. Avian flu models predicted at the height as much as 40% of the workforce may be stricken.
Imagine the impact if 40% of airline crews or truck drivers had to stay home. Deliveries of critical supplies would be delayed impacting countless businesses. In turn those businesses ability to provide goods and services would also be impacted.
We use the current outbreak as a reminder to review any plans that were created for the avian flu. If your business or agency hasn't prepared a plan, now would be a good time to start.
“If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.”--Benjamin Franklin
Showing posts with label economic impact. Show all posts
Showing posts with label economic impact. Show all posts
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Friday, November 2, 2007
Secure Flight
I’d like to thank John Bowen who is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Preventive Strategies for the welcome on his blog, Hometown Security (http://hometownsecurity.blogspot.com)!
Greater Cincinnati International Airport (the ICAO is CVG) is actually located across the Ohio River in Northern Kentucky. It is, by most local news accounts, the second largest hub for Delta airlines. In theory, that should mean flyers in the Tri-State enjoy cheap or at least competitive airline fares. However, fares out of CVG are some of this highest in the nation since Delta more or less has a monopoly at the airport.
I was reminded of this while reading Secretary Chertoff’s blog this morning on Secure Flight which is designed to conduct uniform prescreening of passenger information against federal government watch lists for domestic and international flights. Currently, air carriers are responsible for checking passengers against government watch lists.
Under Secure Flight, TSA will receive information for each passenger. TSA will then determine any matches of information with government watch lists and transmit matching results back to aircraft operators. Secure Flight will match limited passenger information against government watch lists to identify known and suspected terrorists, prevent known and suspected terrorists from boarding an aircraft, facilitate legitimate passenger air travel, and protect individuals' privacy. Secure Flight will:
- Identify known and suspected terrorists;
- Prevent individuals on the No Fly List from boarding an aircraft;
- Identify individuals on the Selectee List for enhanced screening,
- Facilitate passenger air travel by providing fair, equitable and consistent matching process across all aircraft operators; and
- Protect individuals' privacy
Delta flies many non-stop overseas flights from CVG. Cincinnati does not have the high profile of say Laguardia or JFK airports in New York or Logan airport in Boston. Therefore suspected terrorists may be inclined to fly into one of the smaller airports, such as CVG, to minimize exposure to screening. Secure Flight then should be a great advancement in providing higher levels of security and safety at our airports.
I remain skeptical though based on my years of using various data bases for intelligence analysis during my years in the US Air Force. The very first bullet for Secure Flight, “identify known and suspected terrorists”, is a recipe for failure. I say that since any system is only as good as the information that is fed into it. People are not the same as military installations or equipment. Overhead reconnaissance can easily confirm or deny the presence of a new base or the movement of military equipment.
Successfully identifying a terrorist requires human intelligence. The source of this information relies on a plain old carbon based life form rather than piece of technology. He or she has to get close enough to the target to understand objectives intentions. Acting on this information prematurely could alert the target that they are being watched. Failure to do so could activate another cell that our intelligence sources have not discerned. They could attack before we could stop them.
The next goal, “prevent individuals on the No Fly List from boarding an aircraft”, is a good objective but assumes we know the individual in advance. Terrorists are studying our identification and warning networks and will try to breech them by using unknowns. Using an unknown agent to get on board the aircraft is a simple and likely way of defeating this objective.
"Identifying selectees for enhanced screening" sounds like a public relations disaster in the making. Recently authorities in Phoenix arrested a woman that had become loud and belligerent while waiting in the jet way to board her aircraft. The police arrested her and put her in a holding cell at the airport. The woman, who was an alcoholic and was traveling to a rehabilitation center, died while in the holding cell. The authorities were trying to maintain the safety of the other passengers and by their accounts followed procedures yet the woman died.
Airlines are having enough challenges with higher airfares and less in-flight service that if this objective is not implemented carefully, we could really create a crisis for our airline industry. Perhaps this is exactly what the terrorists want, economic collapse. It doesn’t have to be about smashing and airliner into a skyscraper. All it takes is for us to overreact and hurt ourselves.
“Facilitate passenger air travel by providing fair, equitable and consistent matching process across all aircraft operators” well if TSA and DHS can do this it would be one of the few times the federal government has managed to achieve a fair and equitable process across the board. The objective is very noble in its intent but damn impossible to implement. I say that because we are dealing with individuals. Individuals act uniquely at different times and under different situations. Incomplete data files could incorrectly indicate someone as a threat. Dealing with someone who is very emotional or that may be having mental health challenges requires extra care and finesse. I’ve just not seen care and finesse to be a strong suite of any federal training program but concede there has to be some attempt.
The final objective, protecting individual’s privacy, is one that Ohioans are especially skeptical. Earlier this year, a laptop was stolen from a state employee. The laptop contained over 500,000 tax records records of Ohioans including their social security numbers, home address and date of birth. To my knowledge, the laptop still has not been found. The sensitivity of the information in Secure Flight poses a temptation to those motivated by financial or political gain.
For those of us here in the Queen City, I’m not sure if Secure Flight will make us any safer but it will make our screening lines longer. Passengers already disgusted by the higher airfares at CVG will seek out other airports for their travel arrangements. These passengers will start to base other travel and vacation activities in those locations leading to a potential economic downturn here.
Greater Cincinnati International Airport (the ICAO is CVG) is actually located across the Ohio River in Northern Kentucky. It is, by most local news accounts, the second largest hub for Delta airlines. In theory, that should mean flyers in the Tri-State enjoy cheap or at least competitive airline fares. However, fares out of CVG are some of this highest in the nation since Delta more or less has a monopoly at the airport.
I was reminded of this while reading Secretary Chertoff’s blog this morning on Secure Flight which is designed to conduct uniform prescreening of passenger information against federal government watch lists for domestic and international flights. Currently, air carriers are responsible for checking passengers against government watch lists.
Under Secure Flight, TSA will receive information for each passenger. TSA will then determine any matches of information with government watch lists and transmit matching results back to aircraft operators. Secure Flight will match limited passenger information against government watch lists to identify known and suspected terrorists, prevent known and suspected terrorists from boarding an aircraft, facilitate legitimate passenger air travel, and protect individuals' privacy. Secure Flight will:
- Identify known and suspected terrorists;
- Prevent individuals on the No Fly List from boarding an aircraft;
- Identify individuals on the Selectee List for enhanced screening,
- Facilitate passenger air travel by providing fair, equitable and consistent matching process across all aircraft operators; and
- Protect individuals' privacy
Delta flies many non-stop overseas flights from CVG. Cincinnati does not have the high profile of say Laguardia or JFK airports in New York or Logan airport in Boston. Therefore suspected terrorists may be inclined to fly into one of the smaller airports, such as CVG, to minimize exposure to screening. Secure Flight then should be a great advancement in providing higher levels of security and safety at our airports.
I remain skeptical though based on my years of using various data bases for intelligence analysis during my years in the US Air Force. The very first bullet for Secure Flight, “identify known and suspected terrorists”, is a recipe for failure. I say that since any system is only as good as the information that is fed into it. People are not the same as military installations or equipment. Overhead reconnaissance can easily confirm or deny the presence of a new base or the movement of military equipment.
Successfully identifying a terrorist requires human intelligence. The source of this information relies on a plain old carbon based life form rather than piece of technology. He or she has to get close enough to the target to understand objectives intentions. Acting on this information prematurely could alert the target that they are being watched. Failure to do so could activate another cell that our intelligence sources have not discerned. They could attack before we could stop them.
The next goal, “prevent individuals on the No Fly List from boarding an aircraft”, is a good objective but assumes we know the individual in advance. Terrorists are studying our identification and warning networks and will try to breech them by using unknowns. Using an unknown agent to get on board the aircraft is a simple and likely way of defeating this objective.
"Identifying selectees for enhanced screening" sounds like a public relations disaster in the making. Recently authorities in Phoenix arrested a woman that had become loud and belligerent while waiting in the jet way to board her aircraft. The police arrested her and put her in a holding cell at the airport. The woman, who was an alcoholic and was traveling to a rehabilitation center, died while in the holding cell. The authorities were trying to maintain the safety of the other passengers and by their accounts followed procedures yet the woman died.
Airlines are having enough challenges with higher airfares and less in-flight service that if this objective is not implemented carefully, we could really create a crisis for our airline industry. Perhaps this is exactly what the terrorists want, economic collapse. It doesn’t have to be about smashing and airliner into a skyscraper. All it takes is for us to overreact and hurt ourselves.
“Facilitate passenger air travel by providing fair, equitable and consistent matching process across all aircraft operators” well if TSA and DHS can do this it would be one of the few times the federal government has managed to achieve a fair and equitable process across the board. The objective is very noble in its intent but damn impossible to implement. I say that because we are dealing with individuals. Individuals act uniquely at different times and under different situations. Incomplete data files could incorrectly indicate someone as a threat. Dealing with someone who is very emotional or that may be having mental health challenges requires extra care and finesse. I’ve just not seen care and finesse to be a strong suite of any federal training program but concede there has to be some attempt.
The final objective, protecting individual’s privacy, is one that Ohioans are especially skeptical. Earlier this year, a laptop was stolen from a state employee. The laptop contained over 500,000 tax records records of Ohioans including their social security numbers, home address and date of birth. To my knowledge, the laptop still has not been found. The sensitivity of the information in Secure Flight poses a temptation to those motivated by financial or political gain.
For those of us here in the Queen City, I’m not sure if Secure Flight will make us any safer but it will make our screening lines longer. Passengers already disgusted by the higher airfares at CVG will seek out other airports for their travel arrangements. These passengers will start to base other travel and vacation activities in those locations leading to a potential economic downturn here.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Cincinnati Bridges, our potential forest fire
The news for the last few days has been filled with images of the California forest fires. The devastation is almost unimaginable but also it seems people were evacuated in time saving countless lives. Sitting here in Cincinnati, with is wet clay soil and recent heavy rainfall, it hard to imagine what it must be like to see everything around you on fire. While a forest fire is very unlikely around here, we do have our own potential time-bomb just waiting to go off.
Cincinnati’s identity is inextricably linked with the Ohio River. It is because of the Ohio River that explorers first established settlements along the Ohio and Licking Rivers. The Ohio River allowed the economy of Cincinnati to first develop because of the commerce transported by first canal boats and later river boats. Many goods were shipped along the Ohio River but mainly pork. Before anyone ever heard of Chicago as the meat processing capital of the US, Cincinnati had the largest number of slaughter yards. You can’t live along the river and have a thriving economy without bridges. Cincinnati is no exception and has presently has six. In no particular order these are;
1. Roebling Suspension bridge (built in 1867)
2. I-75/71 Brent Spence bridge (built in 1963)
3. The Chesapeake & Ohio RR bridge (built in 1929) and Clay Wade Bailey bridge (built in 1974) stand immediately next to one another and share two piers in the middle of the river
4. I-471 Daniel Carter Beard bridge (built in 1981)
5. I-275 Combs Hehl bridge (built in 1979)
6. Taylor Southgate bridge (built in 1995 to replace the old Central Bridge)
Of these, the Brent Spence bridge has come to national attention after the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis collapsed back in August. The Brent Spence bridge merges two major interstates, I-75 and I-71, as traffic crosses between Ohio and Kentucky. The travel lanes are too narrow, and the merge lanes are too short. The signs are difficult to see, and the on- and off-ramps are spaced too closely together forcing sudden turns and braking by drivers unfamiliar with the exits. There's no room at all for emergency stops. Speeds vary within just several thousand feet. Daily use by cars and trucks long ago surpassed maximum design limits.
The Brent Spence bridge is primarily responsible for the urban development of Northern Kentucky (further increasing the traffic flow for this bridge). Some recent statistics about the Brent Spence Bridge that have come to light as a result of the tragedy in Minneapolis:
- The Brent Spence Bridge is one of only 15 major interstate bridges in the country labeled by the federal government as "functionally obsolete" for failure to meet safety or traffic flow standards.
- It ranks No. 7 among those bridges for highest crash rate, although deaths are few.
- Motorists are five times more likely to have a wreck on the bridge than on the interstate systems of Ohio, Kentucky or Indiana. About eight bridge accidents a month are bad enough to require police presence.
- Big trucks running side by side on the bridge have less than a yard of space between them. Remarkably, the big rigs account for just 11 percent of vehicles involved in reported accidents.
- Even minor mishaps can back up traffic for seven miles or more each way.
The bridge is not in danger of falling down, according to experts, however replacing the bridge would cost $750 million or more. It will take 12-15 years to build a new bridge and in the meantime traffic will continue to increase decreasing the life expectancy of this bridge. A failure of the bridge, especially at peak traffic times, could be devastating.
A response to the Brent Spence bridge disaster would be extremely complicated and slow. Both Ohio and Kentucky first responders and emergency management agencies would have to try and navigate the Ohio River to get survivors out (which becomes even more dire during the winter months with freezing water and ice flows complicating rescue operations). Traffic would be backed up for miles making it difficult, if not impossible, to get emergency vehicles in to evacuate casualties. Adjacent bridges would immediately be overwhelmed by the shift of traffic patterns and the flow of emergency response equipment. Downtown Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky would be put into gridlock. Many businesses would have to temporarily shut-down as workers and supplies could not get into town using the Interstate systems.
Unlike a forest fire or hurricane, if the bridge ever fails it will be without warning. We have about as much advance notice as we are ever going to get. All of us need to think about what such a cataclysmic event will mean to our families, our businesses and our community.
Cincinnati’s identity is inextricably linked with the Ohio River. It is because of the Ohio River that explorers first established settlements along the Ohio and Licking Rivers. The Ohio River allowed the economy of Cincinnati to first develop because of the commerce transported by first canal boats and later river boats. Many goods were shipped along the Ohio River but mainly pork. Before anyone ever heard of Chicago as the meat processing capital of the US, Cincinnati had the largest number of slaughter yards. You can’t live along the river and have a thriving economy without bridges. Cincinnati is no exception and has presently has six. In no particular order these are;
1. Roebling Suspension bridge (built in 1867)
2. I-75/71 Brent Spence bridge (built in 1963)
3. The Chesapeake & Ohio RR bridge (built in 1929) and Clay Wade Bailey bridge (built in 1974) stand immediately next to one another and share two piers in the middle of the river
4. I-471 Daniel Carter Beard bridge (built in 1981)
5. I-275 Combs Hehl bridge (built in 1979)
6. Taylor Southgate bridge (built in 1995 to replace the old Central Bridge)
Of these, the Brent Spence bridge has come to national attention after the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis collapsed back in August. The Brent Spence bridge merges two major interstates, I-75 and I-71, as traffic crosses between Ohio and Kentucky. The travel lanes are too narrow, and the merge lanes are too short. The signs are difficult to see, and the on- and off-ramps are spaced too closely together forcing sudden turns and braking by drivers unfamiliar with the exits. There's no room at all for emergency stops. Speeds vary within just several thousand feet. Daily use by cars and trucks long ago surpassed maximum design limits.
The Brent Spence bridge is primarily responsible for the urban development of Northern Kentucky (further increasing the traffic flow for this bridge). Some recent statistics about the Brent Spence Bridge that have come to light as a result of the tragedy in Minneapolis:
- The Brent Spence Bridge is one of only 15 major interstate bridges in the country labeled by the federal government as "functionally obsolete" for failure to meet safety or traffic flow standards.
- It ranks No. 7 among those bridges for highest crash rate, although deaths are few.
- Motorists are five times more likely to have a wreck on the bridge than on the interstate systems of Ohio, Kentucky or Indiana. About eight bridge accidents a month are bad enough to require police presence.
- Big trucks running side by side on the bridge have less than a yard of space between them. Remarkably, the big rigs account for just 11 percent of vehicles involved in reported accidents.
- Even minor mishaps can back up traffic for seven miles or more each way.
The bridge is not in danger of falling down, according to experts, however replacing the bridge would cost $750 million or more. It will take 12-15 years to build a new bridge and in the meantime traffic will continue to increase decreasing the life expectancy of this bridge. A failure of the bridge, especially at peak traffic times, could be devastating.
A response to the Brent Spence bridge disaster would be extremely complicated and slow. Both Ohio and Kentucky first responders and emergency management agencies would have to try and navigate the Ohio River to get survivors out (which becomes even more dire during the winter months with freezing water and ice flows complicating rescue operations). Traffic would be backed up for miles making it difficult, if not impossible, to get emergency vehicles in to evacuate casualties. Adjacent bridges would immediately be overwhelmed by the shift of traffic patterns and the flow of emergency response equipment. Downtown Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky would be put into gridlock. Many businesses would have to temporarily shut-down as workers and supplies could not get into town using the Interstate systems.
Unlike a forest fire or hurricane, if the bridge ever fails it will be without warning. We have about as much advance notice as we are ever going to get. All of us need to think about what such a cataclysmic event will mean to our families, our businesses and our community.
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