“Within three days of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, university researchers joined emergency personnel at Ground Zero and other locations to begin studying the events’ aftermath and recovery efforts.

The results of their studies were published this week by the Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center based at the University of Colorado at Boulder…

Topics of the 22 individual studies included creativity in emergency response to the World Trade Center disaster, corporate responses and interactions with the public sector, volunteer behavior, implications of the 9-11 events for federal emergency management, impacts on Muslim college students and risk communication and public warning…

Based on findings from these studies, the book includes numerous conclusions and recommendations for how public policy and disaster response can be improved. Some of the recommendations on ways to better cope with terrorist attacks include:

• Law enforcement and investigative personnel need to be integrated into disaster planning, training and exercises because they will have a central role in terrorist disasters.
  
• More media attention to the broader political, social, religious and other aspects of Sept. 11 and similar disasters could help Americans better understand the terrorism risk and the consequences of preventative actions the country might take.
  
• Researchers and practitioners need to communicate information on the best protective actions that people can take in response to terrorism, so that proper warnings and instructions can be formulated.
  
• A consistent policy is needed that balances the public’s and the research community’s need to know versus the need to keep information and databases about critical infrastructure systems secure.” EurekAlert!