The Psychological Effect of Blasts

When I was just starting out as an emergency manager, I had the opportunity to attend a hands-on weapons training in Socorro New Mexico on responding to bombing incidences. It was a multi-week course that covered policy, investigation, and emergency response.

During a few of the days, the trainers would take us to the weapons range in the mountains above Socorro, and they would detonate

Car bomb on the range in New Mexico

various devices. On the last day, they put a couple hundred pounds of Ammonium Nitrate and fuel oil in the trunk of a car, and detonated it. I can tell you even today, I remember the feeling of what it was like to feel that blast wave and see the car (and everything around it) be completely obliterated by the explosion.

Obviously, uncontrolled blast events such as those at the Boston Marathon and Waco Texas can cause serious physical damage to a community. But the longer-term and greater effects to a community as a whole can be the destruction of feelings of security and safety.   

These feelings are critical to the economic health of a community at large, because most people associate the conflagration of a bombing with that of a war zone. In fact, that is exactly how the authorities in Waco described the scene last night. Flattened buildings, raging fires, and hundreds of casualties remind us more of the battlefields in Iraq or Afghanistan rather than rural West Texas.

First, as a business owner, it is important to recognize the effect that the detonation of a device will have on your workforce. Even if the explosion did not strike your company or kill or injure any of your employees or their family, it will still have a massive impact.

Customers will be much more reticent to enter large communal areas. For example, after 9/11, malls took a major economic hit which lasted for months. It was only after Christmas that levels of foot traffic began to rebound.

At the height of the IRA bombing campaign against the English in the 1980's, security became such a psychological concern that even shopping malls in rural areas had full-time security guards and other visual symbols to reassure guests.

Another way the detonation of a device can affect your business is through your employees. In our connected world, our network of friends, family, and "friends"/"followers" has an extended reach.
I noticed after the Boston Marathon bombing that I knew three

different people (who had no connection to one another except that they knew me) who participated in the race. Thankfully, none were injured, but you can imagine how many people in a small place like Waco are interconnected.
 
Your employees will be psychologically affected, and may not be immediately available to work. In fact, as a business owner, it may be YOU that is the most impacted by a particular bombing.

Last, an explosion of any time might just slow an entire city, which will impact your vendors, and the delivery of services to your company. Because of the above impacts, and for others, sometimes communities just shut down. I sometimes call it "instant physiological death". Basically, the community as a whole just stops functioning for a few days because of the shock of an event.

Buncefield Explosion, Hertfordshire, UK

For instance, when an accidental explosion at a chemical factory rocked Hertfordshire, England in the mid-2000s, the entire town nearly ground to a halt. The explosion could be heard from hundreds of miles away, and the smoke was seen by astronauts on the International Space Station, who initially believed a nuclear device has been detonated.

There were few fatalities (since it occurred on a weekend), but the nearby towns of Hatfield, St. Albans, Hertford, and Stephanage literally stopped doing business for days.

As a business owner or leader, remember that the effect of a blast is more than just physical. It can have short and long-term affects that you need to consider as your city or town adjusts after a major explosion. It is this consideration that sets the foundation to Reverse Disaster.