CBRN and Hazmat Incidents at Major Public Events: Planning and Response

Foreword

This book is about protecting large, high-visibility events and public gatherings from accidents or incidents involving hazardous substances. By this, I mean chemical weapons, biological weapons, radioactive substances, nuclear devices, and the whole spectrum of toxic, flammable, and otherwise dangerous commercial and industrial hazardous materials. Collectively, this is known as the CBRN/HAZMAT threat.

WHO NEEDS TO READ THIS BOOK?

This book as written for anyone involved in the preparation of safety and security plans for large events. It is for two groups of readers. First, the many people who plan, manage, and provide emergency-services support for major events. Few of these people will be subject-matter experts in CBRN/HAZMAT, but they need to know how to correctly consider the CBRN/HAZMAT threat in their plans. The second part of the readership is the CBRN/HAZMAT practitioner who may be tasked to support a major event. Many practitioners have great expertise in response, but supporting a major event can be quite different than normal operations. It will be difficult to address both categories of reader equally and consistently throughout the book. Wherever possible, if I think something is very useful to one or the other group, I will highlight it.

As the reader will soon see, this book cuts across many different disciplines. I try to connect ideas and practices from many different sources, I hope that they are useful to the security, safety, or emergency-planning ...