Getting Everyone to Speak a Common
Language
A couple weeks ago, I was teaching a class about using
building design to deter criminal activity, including terrorist attack, and
when it fails reduce its effects and prevent mass casualties. After the obligatory introductions, I said
something to the effect, that building design is a matter of reducing risk
whenever and wherever possible. But in
order to do that you have to the know your “DBT”.
Based on the blank stares, I got back, I knew something was
wrong. So, I said it again. Still the deer in the headlights looks. So, I said, “Everyone knows what DBT stands
for, right”? Still nothing. Not one person raised their hand. I was taken aback. After all the class was made up of seasoned
architects, engineers, planners and security folks. I would have thought, at least, one or two
would have known what I was talking about.
So, we spent the new few minutes talking about Design Basis
Threat or DBT, if you will. DBT is
identifying your threats, their tactics, the tools they may use and then
designing your building to deter or prevent them from happening, in the first
place, and understanding that if they do happen you can reduce their effects if
you’ve included reduction strategies into the design.
The very first thing to do is to assemble “the planning team”. The idea that “it takes a village” needs to
be used here. The team should include architects,
engineers, facility manager, security, end users and others. It’s important to bring these folks together,
so that they can discuss the parameters of what they are trying to accomplish
and “buy in” to the project. If done
correctly at the beginning of a project, security costs can be kept to a
minimum, usually somewhere around five percent of the total project costs. If security comes in at the end of the
project this cost may skyrocket to thirty-forty percent, because of the long
term cost of equipment maintenance and especially, personnel costs.
Once the team is assembled, the first step is to identify
the threat or threats. Threats can be
divided into two categories; natural and man-made. Fortunately, laws and ordinances exist that
address natural threats in building design; i.e., earthquake, flooding, fire,
tornado, etc. Man-made threats on the
other hand – not so much. Although, that
is changing slowly. Last year, federal legislation
was signed into law that addresses the use of hostile vehicles as a method of
attack in public spaces. We’re still
waiting for the DHS report the law requires and its subsequent findings and
recommendations. I’m particularly
concerned that our government hasn’t the courage to attack hostile shooter
legislation, when it is so needed. But
that’s another Blog topic for another time.
The second step is to identify the motives of the man-made
threat,; i.e., causing injury or death, theft or unlawful removal of property
or equipment, damage to property or facilities and causing adverse publicity. Then we need to figure out what type of
groups commit these acts; criminals (sophisticated/non-sophisticated,
organized/unorganized), protesters (organized/non-organized), terrorist (domestic/trans-national/state-sponsored)
and subversives.
Then we look at the tactics they
use; stationary or moving vehicle, different types of weapon usage, forced
entry, etc. Each tactic uses a different
set of tools. That said, each type of tool use has a countermeasure available
to reduce its effectiveness.
If we understand their motives,
tactics and tools, we can design countermeasures into inhabited space that
reduces the possibility that they will occur and when that falls short reduces
their effects.
My book, The Solutions Matrix: A Practical Guide to Soft Security Engineering for
Architects, Engineer, Planners and Security Professionals, will be
available in September. It will outline
the processes used to determine DBT, have a quick reference chart that outlines
how to counter each type of man-made threat and provide examples of practical
real-world solutions.
