Car bomb scares Times Square but fails to explode
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_times_square_car_bomb
{Excerpts]
Thousands of tourists were cleared from the streets for 10 hours after a T-shirt vendor alerted police to the suspicious vehicle, which contained three propane tanks, fireworks, two filled 5-gallon gasoline containers, and two clocks with batteries, electrical wire and other components, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
The T-shirt vendor alerted police at about 6:30 p.m., the height of dinner hour before theatergoers head to Saturday night shows.
Smoke was coming from the back of the dark-colored Pathfinder, its hazard lights were on and "it was just sitting there," said Rallis Gialaboukis, 37, another vendor who has hawked his wares for 20 years across the street.
An alert street vendor gets credit for possibly saving lives and avoiding what might have been considerable physical and financial damage (this despite the fact that "police have spent years trying to crack down on street hustlers and peddlers preying on tourists ").
I preach, mostly to deaf ears I fear, that risk management (business continuity) programs need to include a personnel awareness and safety component.
Staff are the first line of defense against many events, particularly fires and leaks.
Strange smell? Small puddle? Flickering lights?
All are hints that something might be amiss. All deserve to be reported to a central point and "investigators" dispatched to determine the cause.
Sky turning green? Tornado likely - move away from windows.
Management should understand that staff need to be encouraged to pay attention to the environment - both inside the building and outside as well.
Personnel, and personal, vigilance: the least expensive avoidance and mitigation measure an organization can implement.
John Glenn, MBCI
Enterprise Risk Management practitioner
JohnGlennMBCI at gmail dot com
http://JohnGlennMBCI.com
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