The Freedom Tower

Fresh Look at Terrorism Risk
In the past terrorism has been viewed as an event that could not have been anticipated, according to a website called Continuity Central. This is no longer the case. While terror attacks, in some cases, remain unpredictable due to the man-made nature of the event, there now exists enough available historical data related to actual terrorist attacks to meet a legal requirement for determining a standard of foreseeability. According to Dr. Daniel Kennedy, CPP, a criminal forensic expert, “As criminologists know, the best predictor of future events is past events. The best predictor of terrorist attacks would therefore be past terrorist attacks. As suggested in the landmark legal case of Timberwalk v. Cain, the foreseeability of terrorist attacks is based on five factors: frequency, similarity … proximity and publicity of past attacks. The probability of attack would increase exponentially based on these factors.” For example, as much as the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center surprised everyone, it was foreseeable that the Twin Towers were a major terrorist target based on the previous truck bomb attack in 1993.
According to Dr. Michael J. Witkowski, CPP, another criminal forensic expert, “An environment prone to terrorism may be determined by either of two types of legal notice: Actual, by real events on property or territory; or constructive, where factors such as proximity of events and general deterioration of environment are reviewed.” The availability of notice creates possible legal exposure for companies that have not properly assessed and mitigated their terrorism risk using readily available analysis tools or programs. 

Properly analyzed data can be built into a robust environment which visualizes attack location, target type, and victims. This type of analytical tool allows decision makers to begin to evaluate whether safety and security measures are capable of meeting the threat in the surrounding environment or of making decisions that avoid the threat altogether. Additional features such as attack clustering, where multiple or similar type attacks have occurred, can be visualized.
Decision making tools: environmental risk assessments
As corporations seek to lower their operating expense, off-shoring or ‘best shoring’ has become common practice. Exporting operations such as call centers, data centers, business process outsourcing, manufacturing and suppliers to countries such as India or Pakistan have now become commonplace. These remain potential targets for adverse activity when other primary targets are ‘hardened’ and less approachable.
In a three year review of terror based attacks in India, there were approximately 3,300 incidents where an attack location could be identified from publically available media reports. In the most current three-month collection of attack data, there were approximately 206 attacks and only 12 occurred in ‘new’ locations, where an attack had not occurred in the previous 3 years. Or, in other words, 94 percent of attacks occurred in areas where there had been known terror events previously.

The New York Times says the National September 11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center will not open for at least three years. But on his visit last week, Pope Benedict XVI was able to see — in situ — the largest single exhibit that the museum will offer.
The original slurry wall of the World Trade Center, the left side of which will remain on display in the September 11 museum.
A 62-by-64-foot section of the trade center’s original foundation wall, called a slurry wall, preserved and exposed, will occupy the heart of the enormous West Chamber of the underground museum. This wall section is identifiable because it looks much the way it did seven years ago. It was clearly visible from the spot where the pope blessed ground zero on April 20.

Elsewhere along the slurry wall, steel caisson cores have been erected where a new concrete liner will be poured in front of the old wall. The liner wall system will strengthen the slurry wall against caving in or leaking. Floor slabs in the trade center’s basement once provided that extra bracing. High-strength steel cables, known as tiebacks, do so now.

“We are confident that it is safe at this stage,” said Raymond E. Sandiford, chief geotechnical engineer for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which is constructing the museum. “But we wouldn’t want to rely on it for 100 years. We have to either line the slurry wall or reinforce the exposed wall so that the loads on it are very minimal.”

The idea of displaying the slurry wall can be traced to a proposal in 2002 by the architect Daniel Libeskind, who was designated master planner of the trade center site. He said then that the walls around the site had “withstood the unimaginable trauma of the destruction and stand as eloquent as the Constitution itself, asserting the durability of democracy and the value of individual life.”

Six years later, the idea has survived.

CityLimits.org says the city has moved towards a deal to relocate some city agencies to the new World Trade Center.
The deal “gives Ground Zero developer Silverstein a choice to lock the city into a 15-year lease for space in one of the new World Trade buildings.
“It’s nice to have options, and the city last week offered some details on the one it has given to Ground Zero developer Larry Silverstein—a choice to lock the city into a 15-year lease for nearly 600,000 square feet in one of the new World Trade Center towers, for a total price tag of $577 million.

The city granted the option in September 2006, as part of a deal with the Port Authority, New York state and Silverstein Properties over control of the WTC site. But ahead of a contract hearing on Wednesday about the lease, the city revealed new details on the deal’s scope, duration, escalating rent and total bill. The city would occupy 581,642 square feet – comprising all of the 7th through 21st floors of Tower 4 – and would pay rent beginning at $56.50 per square foot, rising each year for the next five years and then jumping again in the 10th year of the lease to $73.21 per square foot.

What the city didn’t reveal is which agencies will use the space, because they don’t know yet. Indeed, while the city leases some 22.5 million square feet of space around the city each year, the Tower 4 deal is unique: It applies to a building that doesn’t exist yet, provides space that has no identified need and probably wouldn’t be used until 2013.

That’s if the lease ever takes effect. Silverstein has until the end of 2009 to execute his option and make the lease binding. Leases on Class A office space in Lower Manhattan went for an average of $53 at the end of last year, but the price had increased 17 percent just over the course of 2007. Since Silverstein’s most recent leases at his rebuilt 7WTC are closing at a reported $70 a square foot, the developer might decide that the city’s deal is too cheap. “The cost per square foot that the city is paying is well below market for Class A space and especially new space downtown,” says Dara McQuillan, a spokesperson for Silverstein Properties. On the other hand against a backdrop of a softening national and local economy what the city’s deal lacks in lucre it makes up for it in certainty.”