Terrorism casualties in the U.S. have been caused primarily by attacks on facilities. In earthquake, hurricane, infectious disease outbreaks, hazmat releases, and other disasters, peoples safety often depends on the facilities they occupy. Yet strategic homeland security documents issued by the White House and the US Department of Homeland Security focus on the protection of "infrastructures," understood to consist mainly of utility systems, and rarely on facilities per se. For other than federal office buildings and infrastructure nodes, federal plans barely acknowledge the urgent task of protecting civilian facilities. This article gives evidence for the importance of facilities to homeland security. Are facilities so varied and numerous that it would be cost-prohibitive to implement a national protection strategy? The article argues that it would not be. Economies of scope in multi-hazard protection, existing legal and accreditation frameworks, new possibilities for integrating information systems, and the nations many facility-safety professionals are all valuable resources on which to build. The U.S. should identify facility protection as a distinctive field of homeland security policy and proceed by supporting decentralized initiatives.

Editor-in-Chief: Renda-Tanali, Irmak, D.Sc.
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Meeting the Challenge of Facility Protection for Homeland Security
Ernest Sternberg / George C Lee
1University at Buffalo, State University of New York
1University at Buffalo, State University of New York
Citation Information: Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. Volume 3, Issue 1, Pages –, ISSN (Online) 1547-7355, DOI: 10.2202/1547-7355.1153, March 2006
Publication History:
- Published Online:
- 2006-03-09
Keywords: critical facilities; facility protection; homeland security policy; critical infrastructures; key assets; terrorism


















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