Transportation securityReport warns Amtrak vulnerable
A new report by the DHS Inspector General warns that Amtrak is vulnerable to terrorist attacks, despite the $1 billion that has already been spent to bolster security; the inspector general found that DHS officials did not ensure that the money was being spent efficiently securing Amtrak’s most vulnerable stations resulting in security gaps
Multiple vulnerabilities noted with Amtrak // Source: infrastructurist.com
A new report by the DHS Inspector General warns that Amtrak is vulnerable to terrorist attacks, despite the $1 billion that has already been spent to bolster security.
Beginning in 2005 the DHS Transit Security Grant Program awarded more than $1 billion in grant funding to help secure passenger rail lines and to protect critical transportation infrastructure. Yet the inspector general found that DHS officials did not ensure that the money was being spent efficiently securing Amtrak’s most vulnerable stations. “As a result, some rail stations and the traveling public may be at a greater risk to a potential terrorist attack,” the report said.
“We visited four high-risk rail stations and observed that Amtrak did not take actions to mitigate some of the more critical vulnerabilities…identified as early as 2006,” the report said. “For example, at one station, we observed that a terrorist could access…” The rest of the sentence had been redacted.
According to Pat Jordan, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Commander who helps oversees an Amtrak and several commuter rail lines, the biggest threats to passengers are bombers or gunmen.
“The most likely one is a small improvised explosive device, or an active shooter type situation. If you look across the country, those are the challenges we face,” he said.
To help protect against these threats Jordan urges passengers to report any suspicious activities they see.
“If you look at a lot of the attempts to attack the transit systems and other attacks around the country, they’ve been really interdicted by people who saw something and said
something”.
Late last month an Amtrak train was evacuated in western Kansas after a passenger found and reported a suspicious device on board. Local law enforcement officers were called in to investigate the package, but found no threat.
The inspector general’s report warns that terrorists will likely continue to target trains as they are attractive targets.
“Since 2004, bombings of the Madrid and Mumbai rail systems and the London subway have demonstrated the critical need to protect rail infrastructure from terrorist attacks,” the report said. “Passenger rail stations are especially attractive to terrorist targets because of the large number of people in a concentrated area.”
The report went on to say, “The largest of America’s rail stations are inter-model transportation terminals with high passenger and cargo volumes. A terrorist attack at these facilities could lead to significant loss of life and economic disruption.”
Each year more than twenty-seven million passengers ride Amtrak at more than 500 stations across the country.
