Thursday, November 27, 2008

Our 9/11

26th November is our 9/11.

I don't know why, but the fact is that this attack on Mumbai is different from all that has happened before. Bomb blasts are one thing. But this is unspeakable, maybe because this is so preventable. A little better security, a little better anticipation, and we could have given a far better answer to those bastards. Consider the following:

1. What if all hotels had emergency exits, smoke alarms and enough space around them so that fire engines could reach even the floors easily?

2. What if the fire engines and firefighters had better equipment so that they could reach higher into tall buildings is required? What is they had access to floor plans of all the major buildings and complexes in their vicinity. What if these plans were all fed into a central database accessible by all emergency services?

3. What if there were a protocol for all armed services to work together seamlessly in the event of domestic terror attacks?

4. What if they had better equipment than "bullet proof" vests that flap in a weak breeze?

5. What is there is a laid out response plan for several different terrorism situations? Step-by-step response levels so that it does not take 20 hours to realize that cable connections to the hotels should be cut to prevent terrorists from knowing what was happening outside?

Sigh...more later...I guess

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

9/11 brought about a change (whether for good or for bad is another thing) in US policy. I doubt if something similar will happen with India after this.

Shan said...

I do hope you are wrong. Because if this doesn't change us, nothing will.