Running Head: The Boston Marathon Bombing and Response to the Attack 1
The Boston Marathon Bombing
Richard Bivens
Liberty university
The Boston Marathon Bombing
Abstract
Throughout history there have been numerous of disasters and threats them at our
country have gone through. Disaster management will be evaluated in the phases of
preparedness mitigation, response, and recovery. The Federal Emergency Management
Agency is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security, initially created
by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 and implemented by two Executive
Orders on April 1, 1979. The planning in the United States with certain events haven’t been
planned out efficiently considering the ways the United States have handled terrorist attacks
and other situations. For example The Boston Bombing was an event that no one expected
would have happened and it did, therefore it was unsuspected but was prepared to a certain
extent. The mitigation and preparation are important phases of disaster management that need
to be explored more than they currently are. It is important that our country is comfortable
knowing that the government is doing everything that is possible to make sure people safety
is a top priority while big events like the Boston marathon is happening because it is on a big
platform which could be a target for a terrorist attack.
Response
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The Boston Marathon Bombing
One of the first response tasks is to conduct a situation assessment. Local government
is responsible for emergency response and for continued assessment of its ability to protect
its citizens and the property within the community. To fulfill this responsibility, responders
and local government officials must conduct an immediate rapid assessment of the local
situation. The 117th Boston Marathon took place on April 15, 2013 with no-one knowing
what that day's sad fate would end up being. There were 27,000 runners taking part, and
every runner had started the marathon by 11:00 AM that morning (After Action Report p.
15). The annual Patriots Day Red Sox game was going on just not even but a few blocks
away from the marathon, and as the game ended, a lot of people who attended the game
ended up walking over to watch the race. But only a few moments later as more people
started to arrive to the marathon the first explosion occurred in the Finish Line area at 2:49
PM. The second explosion happened just 13 short seconds later, 180 yards after the first
explosion (After Action Report p. 15). It’s said that “There was a lot of luck involved, but
also a tremendous amount of preparation; This preparation was shaped by two events
leading up to the day: Sept. 11, 2001, which ushered in a new era of planning for terrorist
attacks; and the 2012 mass shooting in an Aurora, Colo” (O'Reilly, 2018). Since these earlier
events have taken place the United States national security have learned from the past and
have taken extra precautions.
The response to incident commanders ' bombings was fast and successful. They
decided to build a Unified Command Center a block away from the first bomb which became
the main command center for the next 24 hours (After Action Report p.79). The Law
enforcement officers had a tough task ahead of them but they worked diligently around the
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The Boston Marathon Bombing
clock in response to the attacks that has happened. Boston's Transportation Department also
set up electron signs to reroute all traffic from the vicinity of the closed off crime scene
(After Action Report p. 80). Also an significant thing to mention is the increase of protection
within the surrounding areas because of how common the attacks were. Chemical, chemical,
radiological and nuclear detection devices were in place near the finish line and, with the aid
of a Joint Hazard Assessment Committee, were able to determine that the bombs contained
no pollutants (After Action Report p. 38). The National Guard was immediately reassigned to
support the first responders serving in the Attack zone in the Boston area.
Preparedness
Since it’s not entirely not possible to mitigate completely against every hazard that
poses a risk, preparedness measures can help to reduce the impact of the remaining hazards
by taking certain actions before an emergency event occurs. Preparedness includes plans or
other preparations made to save lives and facilitate response and recovery operations.
Preparedness measures involve all of the players in the integrated emergency management
system— local, State, and Federal agencies and citizens—and, at the local level. During the
tragic event of the Boston Bombing Hospitals and other medical responders was were well
prepared for what happened. Shortly after it happened medical teams showed up in a very
short time to handle all the injured people that was involved in the attack, “Medical personnel
manning the runners’ first-aid tent swiftly converted it into a mass-casualty triage unit.
Emergency medical teams mobilized en masse from around the city, resuscitated the injured,
and somehow dispersed them to eight different hospitals in minutes, despite chaos and
snarled traffic”. There have been multiple questions asked in to what prepared the first
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The Boston Marathon Bombing
responders and there answers was, “Ten years of war have brought details of attacks like
these to our towns through news, images, and the soldiers who saw and encountered them.
Almost every hospital has a surgeon or nurse or medic with battlefield experience, sometimes
several. Many also had trauma personnel who deployed to Haiti after the earthquake, Banda
Aceh after the tsunami, and elsewhere. Disaster response has become an area of wide interest
and study” (Gawande, 2013).
Recovery
The goal of recovery is to return the community’s systems and activities to normal. Recovery
begins right after the emergency. Some recovery activities may be concurrent with response efforts.
Long- term recovery includes restoring economic activity and rebuilding community facilities and
housing. Long-term recovery (stabilizing all systems) can sometimes take years. Although recovery
is primarily a responsibility of local government, if the emergency or disaster received a Presidential
Declaration, a number of assistance programs may be available under the Stafford Act.
While catastrophe costs continue to rise, there is a need to take concerted action to reduce or
eliminate long-term threats from hazards that their consequences to people and property. Often
known while prevention is certain continuous actions. Prevention is the primary emergency
management mechanism and should be handled before a disaster or emergency occurs. Nevertheless,
mitigation should also be a ongoing practice that is combined with each of the other emergency
management processes to implement a long-range, community-based mitigation strategy.
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The Boston Marathon Bombing
Conclusion
The law enforcement response to the attack displayed many areas of crisis response
success including coordination, public support, great organization and pre-race training,
Unified Command structure, EMS and health services, and good first responder intervention.
Regional, state, and federal aid reactions made recovery easier, although recovery of such a
terrorist attack is never swift. Overall, this incident exposed a few vulnerabilities within the
government in responding to terrorism, but it also showed how quickly and effectively law
enforcement responded to this terrorist act. The lack of coordination and communication,
lack of arms discipline, and lack of a joint information center were the only areas in need of
improvement. The response to this attack was deemed to be extremely successful throughout
the investigation and attributed to the suspects ' apprehension within five days.
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The Boston Marathon Bombing
Resources
After Action Report for the Response to the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombings. (2013). Retrieved
from http://www.mass.gov/eopss/docs/mema/after-action-report-for-the-response-to-the-2013-
boston-marathon-bombings.pdf.
Diedrich, M. (n.d.). Law and Public Safety. Retrieved from
https://www.stlouisco.com/LawandPublicSafety/EmergencyManagement/TheFivePhasesofEmergenc
yManagement
Gawande, A. (2017, June 18). Why Boston's Hospitals Were Ready. Retrieved from
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/why-bostons-hospitals-were-ready
O’Reilly, K. (2018, April 9). Preparedness-and Luck-Helped Save Lives at the Boston Marathon
Bombing. Retrieved from https://news.worcester.edu/preparedness-luck-helped-save-lives-boston-
marathon-bombing/
SCHOROW, S. (n.d.). NFPA Journal. Retrieved from https://www.nfpa.org/News-and-
Research/Publications-and-media/NFPA-Journal/2017/May-June-2017/Features/Marathon
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