October 7, 2007
Terrorism Department
A Preview of Terrorism
Did you ever wonder if your city was really prepared to handle a major terrorist attack? Here in Chicago, which is in the running for the 2016 Olympics, we may have just found out the answer.
No, we didn't have a terrorist attack. We had the 2007 Chicago Marathon on the hottest day ever in race history.
According to reports, about 35,000 people started the marathon this morning, 10,000 fewer than had signed up, presumably because of the temperature prediction. Another 10,000 would drop out along the way. At 11:30am, as the temperature hit 88 degrees, officials cancelled the race. 4000 runners had already crossed the finish line, and another 20,000 would finish it at a walk.
Meanwhile, hundreds of people neither finished nor quit. One man died, and 312 people had to be taken off the course for medical treatment.
This was, technically speaking, a disaster. Within a space of a few hours, the city's emergency services system was hit with 300 casualties. That's roughly equivalent to a building collapse or a large terrorist attack.
How'd we do?
It's too soon to tell, but according to the police blogs, it was chaos. There wasn't enough water for all the runners, the city-wide radio channels were overloaded, and some downed runners had to wait because the city ran out of available ambulances.
That could all be sour grapes, but if not...
If this is how the city handles a totally predictable problem, then I think we're all screwed in a terrorist attack.
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