Breathe deep. Now, take another breath. Ah, the air entering the building is fresh and clean. But, what if it wasn’t?
The National Response Center logged 33,882 hazmat incidents in 2008. There were almost 1,400 transport incidents and 1,600 railroad incidents with a release. What if just upwind of your facility an accidental chemical spill occurred? The toxic plume would engulf your building. The lethal air coming into your air handlers would be circulated throughout the building in minutes. The death toll and serious injury count could possibly be enormous.
What about terrorism? Flying a plane into a building is an abominable crime, though quite complicated. As has been pointed out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), Lawrence Berkeley Lab, the Army Corps of Engineers, 9/11 Commission and others, a far simpler way to wipe out hundreds to thousands of innocent people in a short period of time would be via the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system of a large commercial or government building. 
Think about it. All a terrorist or disgruntled employee would need do is to buy or steal some liquid chlorine, cyanide, arsine or another toxic industrial chemical—all easily accessible—and discharge the chemical either into a fresh air intake or go to any floor and release the toxic gas. The building’s air system will circulate that deadly air from the release floor to the rest of the building in minutes before anyone knows that anything is happening. Building occupants are basically trapped inside the building envelope. Imagine the news footage on television and across the Web. What impact would such an event have on commercial real estate as a whole? Would you go to work in your office building after such a catastrophe?
These scenarios are not so farfetched. Not too long ago, the San Francisco police chief called a chemical or dirty bomb release in San Francisco or another large city ‘inevitable.’ The outcome of such an event would be devastating. In August of 2008, the San Francisco Fire Department performed a hazmat interoperability drill in a downtown high-rise. All the players were at the drill including the police, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. National Guard, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and others. The drill was a terrorist release of cyanide in the lobby. From an interoperability standpoint, the exercise proved successful. Interagency communication went well. However, from a facility or tenant standpoint, the drill was a disaster. Because the first responders did not know what type of toxin they were dealing with, they did not enter the building for 60 minutes. Return air exchange in that part of the building is estimated to be less than 10 minutes. The security command center is ventilated with the same lobby air. Engineers were running through the building manually shutting down air handlers. Admittedly, in a real event, those engineers would have been overcome by the toxic chemical being circulated via the return air system handling the lobby and the bottom six floors. Elevators continued running for a time, pumping the toxins via the piston effect up higher into the tower. Again, the expected casualty count was extraordinary.
Measuring the impact
Beyond the implications to life and limb, what are the business consequences from such a calamity? Like the firm at the World Trade Center who lost almost all of their people on Sept. 11, 2001, how would the businesses located in your facility survive under such a scenario? Sure, there are back-up data centers and alternative worksites, but if there are no people left to get to those sites, what will the impact be on the business itself?
Now, let’s talk facility recovery. Your building can be cleaned but what will be the recovery time? For hazmat clean-up the expense is high and time can drag on. In a bomb scenario, the radiological material could be in the carpets, walls, furnishings, fittings—nearly everywhere. At a cost of US$1,000 per man hour for radiological clean-up, imagine the cost of recovering your building. Plus, the radioactive material can’t just go to the regular dump. It will have to go to a special site. You begin to wonder what it will take to get this building back on-line—and when you do get it back, who will come to work in it. What is the psychological impact on your building management team, your tenants and their employees? Will you be able to lease space in a building that has been a target or is located near one?
How is your insurance structured? Does the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act cover a chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear attack? Do you have backstop captives in place? Business is no longer running as usual.
What can you do to prevent this?
So as a facility manager, how will you protect the people and assets under your charge from an airborne accidental release or targeted attack? The Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers, NIOSH and Lawrence Lab recommend passive solutions including covering, disguising or relocating vulnerable fresh air intakes on or near ground level. Unfortunately, these options provide no protection in an internal release or a plume cloud scenario. The agencies speak to fine high efficiency particulate air filtration that can be put in place to capture organic particles or particles from a radiological bomb. However, these filters do little to protect against a chemical gas—not to mention the negative impact on airflow restriction to your mechanical systems. Ultraviolet light can be installed in the ductwork, as well electrostatic filtering that can be put in place. However, these passive alternatives have extreme limitations and often prove cost and recurring maintenance prohibitive.
Often, other countermeasures are put into place to protect the air handling systems but can provide an illusion of safety. Access control is wise. Cameras can provide forensic evidence. Emergency power off (EPO), one button HVAC shutdown switches, are smart. Monitored sensors are another option.
However, all of the solutions prove limited to an airborne toxic release due to the short amount of time necessary to react and proactively save lives. As we know, humans often prove to be the weakest link in an emergency situation. Who will make the decision to activate the EPO switch? Will the team be trained, stationed near the building management system and capable of executing the shutdown rapidly? What happens under a false alarm? If a guard sees someone in a camera or gets a sensor alarm, how long will it take to assess the situation and properly activate a shutdown? Alternatively, how long will it take for the guard to get to the scene and will he or she be prepared to shut off a toxic chemical cylinder by the time he or she arrives? 
Remember, in less than five or six minutes, toxins released to a building’s HVAC system will be circulated throughout the building wreaking havoc. Time is of the essence and human decision making must be immediate.
There is good news
New technologies have finally emerged to reliably protect buildings and their occupants from an airborne toxic release. These next generation systems provide broad spectrum sensing and have eliminated false positive alarms. The leading technologies actively detect, identify and isolate the dangerous toxins by automatically shutting down the HVAC system within seconds of detection. The technology also transmits real-time information to first responders, expediting a safe building rescue.
The U.S. federal government is encouraging the adoption of these new counterterrorism and life/safety technologies via the SAFETY Act of 2002. The law provides that if the technology has achieved SAFETY Act designation from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the buyer of the technology receives extraordinary liability protections in the event of a CBRN attack. This litigation and liability relief can lead to risk mitigation and insurance cost savings. Learn more at www.SAFETYAct.gov.
So, breathe easy. A real solution to an extraordinary vulnerability now exists. This new building protection technology is being adopted by thought-leading companies and government agencies to protect their people and assets. It is 2010. Hopefully it will not take a real tragedy to motivate more facilities to protect their people and guests with these new reliable lifesaving technologies.
About the author
Mike Welden is the senior vice president of Homeland Security for Building Protection Systems, Inc. (BPSI) in San Francisco. He is engaged in building design and infrastructure retrofit projects focusing on asset protection, business endurance, and workable counterterrorism and life/safety solutions. Welden may be contacted at mwelden@BPSIglobal.com.
