Containing Financial Contagion at the Source

The world financial market is currently in turmoil because of the recent housing and credit crisis. From January to November 2007, more than 1 million homes in the United States entered foreclosure. Not only are homeowners losing their homes, but paying renters are being evicted as lenders reclaim properties. Depending on the state, 48–69% of foreclosed loans come from the subprime market. Subprime refers not to interest rates but to borrower quality, determined by low credit scores, little credit history, or unstable income with limited assets. Because of the increased risk associated with loaning to them, those borrowers cannot get favorable rates and often take out loans with short-term introductory rates. These loans generally get packaged by Wall Street into residential-backed securities and structured into slices or tranches that can be priced and rated from AAA to BBB– on the basis of the credit risk inherent in each tranche. When these mortgages adjust to market rates, the borrower no longer qualifies for the existing loan and can no longer pay it back. Because techniques such as gifted down payments and no requirements to prove income were the only way to move these borrowers into mortgages, many were lured into a false sense of prosperity for which they were neither prepared nor equipped and for which they are now suffering through foreclosure.

Security Inspection Model of Critical Infrastructure

This chapter presents an approach that can be used to assist in border patrol and security management. On August 12, 2005, New Mexico governor Bill Richardson announced a state of emergency in four counties along the New Mexico-Mexico border in response to the booming smuggling of drugs and illegal immigrants, kidnapping, murder, and destruction of property and livestock (CNN, 2005). Three days later, Arizona governor Janet Napolitano issued a similar declaration (Media, 2005). Both states immediately released emergency funds to help patrol their borders by hiring additional law enforcement officers and paying them overtime. In addition to building fences along the US-Mexico border (Media, 2006) and drawing attention to the political issues involved, such as immigration law, these two announcements indicate the urgency and importance of planning and implementing an effective border patrol. The border patrol, an important component of the nation’s security system, requires daily, around the clock operation and is frequently overt while illegal border-crossings and other criminal events are covert. When an illegal crossing is discovered, a decision must be made immediately whether to track the illegal crossers, to continue patrolling the rest of the assigned areas, or to attempt to do both together. This decision is based largely on whether the unit of border agents itself, or the border patrol station to which it belongs, has an adequate number of guards at the time of the incident. With sufficient forces, both pursuing and patrolling can be handled immediately. Otherwise, a dilemma arises as either the assigned area of the border is left unguarded (i.e., out of control) if the choice is to track the illegal crossers only, or if the decision is to continue patrolling without interruption the team neglects its duty. The border counties mentioned in the two announcements have expressed a desire to expand the number of patrol agents on the border in addition to needing different detection devices. For example, one proposal from Arizona Senator Jon Kyl in a bill is to authorize 10,000 new Border Patrol agents (Carroll & Gonzalez, 2005). On May 15, 2006, President George W. Bush announced sending 6,000 National Guard troops to help secure the southern border (CNN, 2006).

Attention Capture and Effective Warning

The term “attention” in psychology is defined as (1) the act or state of attending, especially by applying the mind to an object of sense or thought, and (2) a condition of readiness for such attention (Attention, 2007). Drawing on research carried out for decades in psychology that explores the human attention mechanism to understand a variety of attentional phenomena, such as attention to dimensions and objects, selective listening, task switching, and so forth (e.g., Bundersen, 1990; Heinke & Humphreys, 2003; Logan, 2002; Luce, 1963; Ratcliff, 1978; Ratcliff et al. 1999; Reeves & Sperling, 1986; Shepard, 1957; Shih & Sperling 2002), we examine how attention might be captured and thus identify factors that characterize the effectiveness of a warning advisory. In this context, we use attention to describe awareness, a concentration of the mind on a single object, and a state of consciousness characterized by such concentration and the capacity to maintain selective concentration. Asking a person to pay attention to something implies that the person is aware of this “something” first, and then concentrates his or her mind on it. Therefore, we begin our discussion by defining awareness in this section.

Countering Chemical Terrorism

An industrialized society makes widespread use of toxic chemicals, transported daily in large amounts on the roads or by rail. Approximately 800,000 shipments of hazardous substances, including chemical and petroleum products, travel daily throughout the United States by ground, rail, air, water, and pipeline (DOT, 1998). Although nearly all of these materials safely reach their destinations, many are explosive, flammable, toxic, and corrosive and can be extremely dangerous if released improperly. These materials frequently are transported over, through, and under areas that are densely populated or populated by schools, hospitals, or nursing homes, where the consequences of an acute release could result in environmental damage, severe injury, or death (DOT, 1999; AAR, 2004). According to the U.S. Hazardous Substances Emergency Events Surveillance (HSEES) system, 643 incidents involving chemicals in the highest-ranked group—designated as those that are easy to obtain, travel far by air if released, are highly toxic, and could be used as weapons—occurred in 15 U.S. states between October 2006 and February 2007. These 643 chemical incidents affected 225 victims (who could be associated with more than one chemical) and resulted in 1,200 persons being evacuated. Table 8.1 displays the disposition of most affected people. For an industrial chemical incident, the type of chemical agent involved (if released) is normally known during the occurrence. On the basis of the agent’s characteristics and possible poisonous effects, an event-based, specific response and associated medical rescue procedure can be generated and implemented to handle and control the situation.

Quickly Channeling Crowd Population in Emergency

Evacuation remains one of the main public protection strategies in response to a man-made or natural incident when people are at risk. In most cases when an evacuation is required, it indicates the presence of danger and urgency. By instinct, people affected act to escape from the danger; thus, two typical phenomena often occur during an evacuation: competitive behavior and herding behavior (Festinger, 1954). If people perceive a threat and are trapped at an incident site, they try to get out as soon as possible. Usually, they look for exit signs or evacuation routes that can lead them to a safer place and proceed to the nearest one. For people near the exit or route entrance, moving toward the exit or entering the evacuation route may be the only likely escape choice. Thus, two forms of competitive behavior may exist simultaneously: the effort to pass through the exit (or enter the route) as quickly as possible, and the effort among those at risk to run toward the exits. Such behavior may cause congestion at the exits or entrance points, even to the point that people may crush one another. The India stampede event on January 26, 2005, is just such a tragedy. According to media reports (BBC, 2005; CNN, 2005), a screaming crowd fled down narrow walkways chaotically when fires broke out, causing many people to be crushed and resulting in 250 deaths.

Psychosocial Effects

According to the American Red Cross, a disaster is an occurrence, such as a hurricane, tornado, storm, flood, high water, wind-driven water, tidal wave, earthquake, drought, blizzard, pestilence, famine, fire, explosion, volcanic eruption, building collapse, transportation wreck, or other situation, that causes human suffering or creates human needs that the victims cannot alleviate without assistance. Basically, this definition covers all natural, conventional disasters. Since the attacks of September 11th, 2001, terrorist-related threats or attacks represent a newly realized danger to the public. For example, before September 11, 2001, Americans did not worry much about terrorism; after the attacks, they worried intensely. In this context, we define a disaster as an occurrence that threatens a society, causes human suffering, or damages goods such as buildings, communication systems, infrastructures, living environments, and so forth. In this definition, society, humans, and goods are called affected entities, and the force behind the occurrence is the causer or source of the disaster. The causer can be human-made or a natural force.

Situation Awareness through Feature Recognition

To help establish response plans for protecting U.S. homeland security, a standardized set of scenarios that can function as a “common operating picture” has been developed under the leadership of the U.S. Homeland Security Council (HSC) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS), according to The New York Times (Lipton, 2005). The 15 developed scenarios help identify critical capabilities and procedures for response, define operational parameters for layer response capabilities, establish a foundation for resource decisions, and pave the way to identify needed technology enhancements. To ensure that emergency planning is adequate, each scenario generally reflects suspected terrorist capabilities and known tradecraft. Of the 15 scenarios, 12 refer to human-made intentional terror attacks, and 3 pertain to catastrophic natural disasters (i.e., influenza pandemic, magnitude 7.2 earthquake in a major city, and slow-moving category 5 hurricane hitting a major East Coast city). Of the 12 human-made terror attacks, 8 are biological or chemical strikes, including the release of a Sarin nerve agent in an office building, spraying aerosolized anthrax over five cities in two weeks, and spreading pneumonic plague in the bathrooms of an airport, sports arena, and train station. Two scenarios involve the use of nuclear and radiological dispersion devices in a large metropolitan area or regionally significant cities, and one suggests an explosion using improvised explosive devices. The scenarios also include a cyber attack that affects several parts of the nation’s finance infrastructure. Biologically or chemically related threats clearly have prompted heightened concern; an attack involving biological or chemical contagious pathogens, if it were to occur, would cause tremendous damage to the public.

Disaster Promulgation and Collective Behaviors

As mentioned previously, the actions or anxiety moods of others directly affect a person’s attitude, especially when the situation is ambiguous and difficult for an individual to assess. The observed actions of others may suggest the situation is more severe. Once an observable anxiety with somatic symptoms is initiated, it tends to be imitated by the population and become a social trend. In this chapter, we quantify the disaster induced possible collective anxiety and estimate population level social productivity and response efforts. We then discuss the application of the proposed models in examining the potential psychosocial effects of an infectious disease like SARS.

Individual Reactions and Psychological Impact

The possible psychosocial consequences associated with a threat or disaster, as discussed in Chapter III, indicate that people’s behaviors and/or reactions can indicate whether they are affected and the degree of impact if affected. If affected, possible reactions can range from common responses, such as fear and anxiety, to fatigue, sadness, depression, and stress disorders. Whereas some people experience significant subjective discomfort, others display conspicuous impairment in their day-to-day functioning, such as sleeplessness; still others indicate clear impairment in one or more functional aspects, such as work productivity or the ability to engage in and enjoy leisure activities.

Dynamics of Public Perception and Confidence

To guard against potential terrorist attacks and protect the public and infrastructure, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and related authorities usually issue threat warning advisories to the public when there is a potential threat (CRS, 2004; DHS, 2001; PPW, 2004). The warning advisory relies on a five-color system (see Figure 2.1) that represents levels of risk related to a potential terror attack. Each threat level has a corresponding list of recommended actions that the public should take to reduce the likelihood or impact of a potential attack. Therefore, when a warning advisory is issued, authorities hope the public will follow the advisories, which are listed on the DHS’s Citizen Guidance on the Homeland Security Advisory System Web page, and take the recommended actions (Citizen, 2001; Federal, 2001). For example, as of December 31, 2007, the country remained at an elevated risk (i.e., code yellow) for a terrorist attack.