Salt Lake City 1983 Flood Recovery Reflections

When I was at the Salt Lake City 1983 flood, a hydrologist took me to the top of the mountain shown in these photos. From there, I was able to see the phenomenal view of large sections of the a major American city under water. These floodwater's caused major chemical waste ponds to overflow and their effluents downstream, in addition to all the other problems that result from a flood. It was dangerous.
Yet in 2013 I stood on the same mountain just behind the Utah State Capital that overlooks much of the city and all I saw were gleaming new buildings and dry land. It was as if the flood never happened.
Behind me million dollar houses with wrap around porches were being built. Before me the downtown is beginning to look like Manhattan with local, regional, national and international banks competing for who could build the tallest skyscraper.

Salt lake City in 2013 is a different city than the one I saw in the 1983 flood when it was under a large body of water. It has prospered and grown, especially in the software and financial services industries.
LDS missionaries go to exotic and remote locations and learn obscure languages. As a result, they are heavily represented in our intelligence services, especially the CIA and military branch intelligence units.

This should give them an advantage in identifying jihadi threats and attacks, but not necessarily. One of the talks I heard at the TACDA conference was about the danger of expecting the normal to always be normal that all humans have. Unfortunately, it causes us to ignore obvious dangers and threats when they are right in front of us.
The speaker used the example of two USAF Academy cadets being stuck in snow in a remote area and heating their car continuously where heating it for ten minutes every hour would have stretched their gas to the point where they could have survived.
Another example was three pilots who ignored obvious signs their large commercial airline was in a stall even though the signs were before them.
I have another example I saw in Salt Lake City.

When I toured the magnificent solid granite state capital, I saw no security. No one checked my backpack when I entered. No one looked me over. I saw no physical security guarding that building.
When I asked about this later, I was told that Utah is a carry state and that anyone threatening the legislators would be answered by armed legislators. That's funny, but it is not a security plan.
Granted, I'm an outsider and not privy to the Utah State Capital security group, but just like a thief will pass a house where he hears a dog or sees security cameras, so too jihadi's often pass a hardened target for a softer and more vulnerable one.
It would be worth the time of Utah's state capital security forces to make a show of force at all entrances to the building, even when they are not in session as when I visited.

Predictive Intelligence

This is doubly troubling because the first jihadi mass murder mall attack was in Trolley Square in Salt Lake City in 2004...not in Kenya in 2013. Here is a link to the story.
And here is a summary of the attack:
"On the evening of Feb. 12, 2007, a young Muslim man walked into the Trolley Square mall in Salt Lake City with a pistol-grip, 12-gauge shotgun and a 38-caliber revolver and opened fire on shoppers, killing five and wounding four others, including a pregnant woman.
Police say he “sought to kill as many people as possible.” He had a backpack full of ammunition, enough firepower to massacre dozens of innocent people. But fortunately, an off-duty cop returned fire and eventually, with the help of other police, put an end to the terrorist’s life and grand plans." Apparently, Talovic had prepared for his own martyrdom. He told a friend before the attack that “tomorrow is going to be the happiest day of my life, but it will happen only once.”“One interpretation of this statement is that Talovic was happy that he was going to be a shahid — that he would be committing jihad and go to paradise,” according to a July 2, 2007, electronic communication from the Salt Lake City field office to the counterterrorism division of the FBI.Before leaving for the mall, which was located just a few minutes from the mosque he attended, he showered and put on a necklace featuring a miniature Koran, a gift from his father. Prior to his death, some witnesses overheard Talovic shouting “Allahu Akbar!” — or “Allah is greatest!” — a ritual cry of suicide terrorists.
Talovic was “described as religious,” according to the FBI communique, marked “Secret.” “He had attend the mosque regularly for Friday prayers.”
That mosque was the Al-Noor Mosque, led by a Somali national. Some investigators suspect Talovic was radicalized there.

These details are buried in the more than 745 pages of investigative reports generated in the case by the FBI, the same agency that officially claims it found no evidence Talovic’s religion was a factor.
“Clearly, he had some religious beliefs,” Fuhrman said, “but just because someone has religious beliefs doesn’t mean anything is a terrorist act.”
That last line is frightening, because it is the same line used by the media and and others to pretend jihadi attacks are always something else...workplace violence is the cover story for Major Hassan, and there are many other subterfuges.The most common media excuse is that the terrorist had "mental issues." Yeah. No kidding.
My observation is the visible lack of security in the State Capital building along with the local unwillingness to address the jihadi's living among them is fraught with danger for the citizens of Salt Lake City.
Disasters are man-made and natural. They did an outstanding job of handling and even prospering from the 1983 flood. Not sure they are aware of how vulnerable they are to another Talovic attack, especially if it is many Talovic's attacking.
Salt Lake City is such a stunningly beautiful city. From what I saw, it is also a very open city. It is an unfortunate fact of life that jihadi's are looking for soft targets in the U.S. As they say on so many of their websites, "We have been at war with you for 1,400 years. You forgot. We did not."
I pray that those responsible for the safety and security of the Americans in Salt Lake City do what they must before another jihadi attack.
As these photos demonstrate, it is a beautiful, beautiful city. And the people are even more so.
May they receive the predictive intelligence, preemptive identification, and early shut down of the threats they face, like all Americans, from people who have made no secret of their intentions.

Is Salt Lake City a Dry City

My wife kept insisting before I flew there that Salt Lake City was a dry city in the sense of not allowing alcohol sales.

That may have been true in 1983. I only remember the Marriott's hotels having bars and serving alcohol then.

That is no longer the case.
In fact, Salt Lake City, like so much of the Pacific Northwest, has a thriving craft beer industry.

The photo here of the Salt Lake Brewing Company is a place that carries a tremendous number of craft brews.

Social Media Tools for Emergency Managers - TACDA

Gave a talk about social media for emergency managers to The American Civil Defense Association in Salt Lake City, Utah on October 12th, 2013 The highlights of the talk are presented in the slides here.They were kind enough to invite me to join the board of directors. It was my honor to accept.Here is the link if you want to join http://www.tacda.org/ I did and have gained an outstanding resource that includes:How to survive an ABCN attackTools for survivalNational amateur radio resourcesHistory of American Civil DefenseJournal of Civil DefenseTACDA AcademyAll this and more and membership is only $12 a year. Again, I urge you to join for the sake of you and your family.One guy who heard my talk really made my trip to Utah, and the expense, worth it all. Earlier he told me he worked at the Skunk Works(r)  on the U-2 and SR-71 for decades.  He had my instant respect with that fact. Then he shared stories of those two wonders of American know-how and technological superiority in the half hour before my talk.He came up to me after my social media for emergency managers talk and said: "Give me a copy. I can't tell you who I will be sharing this with, but it will help save many American lives." He helped reaffirm my faith in the basic goodness of the American people. As importantly, he made the main point of my talk: social media is about people, not technology.I was in Salt Lake City 30 years ago when the Great Salt Lake rose five feet and flooded the valley. Thousands of volunteers, at the prodding of the elders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, filled sand bags and channeled the flood waters through downtown Salt Lake City to Lake Provo. Local people did this. Not the Feds. And they saved countless lives and property by doing so. Here are some links for background.Flood Watch 1983 Utah History to GoSalt Lake City Flood 1983 in FlickrIn 1983 I was in Salt Lake City to observe the flood, the damage, and how they prepared for, responded to, and mitigated the damage before and after. A hydrologist took me out to a cliff outside the city that showed where the American Indians had made marks in the stone for 10,000 years...every 60 years...to mark the flood.I stood on a mountain above the Utah State Capital Building and saw the flood for miles, from the overflowed chemical waste ponds to channeled river on State Street. It was a marvel to behold.On my trip this time, I went up to the same mountain and took photos and videos of the same scene. It is always stunning to return to a disaster site, thirty years later in this case, and observe the same scene...which is never the same. Here, the development is just incredible. I will create another post to record this change.Here's the takeaway.When the next "flood of the century" like that in Salt Lake City in 1983 strikes again, emergency managers and the LDS elders have a few more tools (see the slides here for a few pointers) in their toolkit than shovels, heavy plastic bags, and sand.They have social media.And social media, used correctly by emergency managers or elders, can save many lives and prevent property destruction.Just look at how the people of Joplin, MO used social media before, during and after their F5 hurricane of 2010 for a case study of how it is done correctly.

Preparing a Social Media Disaster Strategy