Surface Transportation Security. A Guide to Transportation's Role in Public Health Disasters. Volume 10

摘要

This report contains introductory information on chemical, biological, and radiological (CBR) threats as they relate to the transportation system. The report presents the fundamentals of CBR agents, describes the basic information needed for emergency response decisions, discusses how CBR threats relate to transportation system vulnerabilities and consequence minimization actions, and generally compares the different threat-agent categories. The transportation section describes each of the transportation modes (i.e., highway, maritime, rail, aviation, and mass transit), their general organization, and their emergency response plans, options, and structure. Incident response to a CBR release probably will involve establishing isolation and restriction areas where dangerous contaminant levels are suspected. The extent of such areas often will change as a more thorough survey of contaminant levels is conducted. In general, the speed with which CBR contamination can be identified affects the duration of broader, initial restricted areas and related requirements for suspension of transportation service and traffic re-routing. Chemical and radiological agents can be identified rapidly with portable detectors. In contrast, only a few types of biological agents can be identified with portable detectors. For most biological agents, identification takes several days of laboratory analyses. The longer time usually required for identifying the extent of biological contamination means isolation and restriction areas will be delineated with a wider margin of uncertainty incorporated into the restricted area to ensure safety. Non-persistent CBR agents (e.g., industrial gases, sarin, and many vegetative bacteria and viruses) typically do not pose a substantial threat for more than a day or two unless there is a continual source of release. In contrast, persistent agents have the potential to cause greater disruption of transportation because of the longer period over which they pose a substantial threat.