Boise’s terrorism risk high
BOISE – The amount of risk Boise faces from extreme events such as wildfires or the failure of an upstream dam makes it rank among the most vulnerable cities in the U.S. to terrorism attacks, a University of Arizona researcher says.
“If the terrorists were smart enough to say, ‘I’m going to take out the dam in Boise,’ you guys would be in trouble,” said mathematics professor Walter W. Piegorsch.
The recently released 15-page report, titled “Benchmark Analysis for Quantifying Urban Vulnerability to Terrorist Incidents,” was partially paid for by the Department of Homeland Security.
Researchers determined the relative risk urban areas face by using a complex formula that comes up with a “place-based vulnerability index” score. Factors in the equation include the natural environment a city is located in, the severity of damage that might result from an attack, and the demographics of the population that hint at how residents might be able to respond or escape from an attack.
Researchers converted those factors into numbers and plugged them into the formula. They said they were surprised to see Boise end up at No. 10, and that they triple-checked the numbers.
Other than Houston, Boise is the only city in the West that appears on the map as red for high risk.
Local officials said they are taking the report seriously.
“We’re all in the process of analyzing this report to fully understand what it says,” said Lt. Col. Tim Marsano, a spokesman for the Idaho Bureau of Homeland Security.
Lynn Hightower, spokeswoman for the Boise Police Department, said it is working with the FBI to contact Piegorsch and others who compiled the report to discuss the findings.
Lucky Peak Dam is upstream of Boise. Piegorsch said past floods and wildfires in the area pushed Boise into the top 10.
Piegorsch said the report doesn’t try to predict where terrorists might attack. “It’s not probability of being a target,” he said. “It’s vulnerability.”
New Orleans had the highest vulnerability score in the report.