COLUMBIANA COUNTY Agency to lend tapes on terrorism

One video uses actors to depict how terrorists might stage an attack at a mall.
By NORMAN LEIGH
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
LISBON -- The Columbiana County Emergency Management Agency is using a videotape library to help make people more aware of terrorism and how to respond to it.
The agency is willing to lend the tapes at no charge to area businesses, local governments, churches, schools and social services agencies, said Mary Smith, the emergency management training officer.
"The world has changed. You have to have awareness and be on alert," Smith said.
The tapes, for laymen and emergency professionals, offer instruction on a variety of topics.
Biochemical terrorism
One tape on biochemical terrorism uses actors to portray a situation showing a terrorist depositing a bag in a trash basket at a mall's food court.
The tape goes on to depict a maintenance man falling immediately ill when he starts to empty the trash. Paramedics are called to the scene of what appears to be a heart attack, only to be stricken themselves.
The aim of the tape is to educate viewers on the insidious nature of terror attacks and their dependence on people's usual response to emergencies, which is to help others, Smith said.
Another tape, titled "Surviving the Secondary Device," discusses the terrorist tactic of using two-stage attacks that employ a first device, such as a bomb, aimed at drawing people to help the injured, only to be killed or injured themselves by a second device.
Chilling example
The Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the World Trade Center is a chilling example of that strategy in its use of two planes striking the towers minutes apart, Smith noted.
Other tapes are titled "Emergency Response to Terrorism" and "Coping With Terrorism in a Changing World."
In making the tapes available, the emergency management agency aims to persuade people to be more aware of what's going on around them and how they respond to emergencies, Smith said.
They also intend to make people more ready to note suspicious actions or people and to notify authorities about what they've seen.
Agency officials are willing to appear before groups that are to watch the tapes and make a presentation about their contents and answer questions, Smith said.
10-tape library
The emergency management agency's library now consists of about 10 tapes, which run from 20 minutes to more than an hour.
Smith said she'd like to see the collection grow to at least 30 tapes.
The films' costs vary. The agency buys them with federal grants.
To view the tapes, contact the emergency management agency at (330) 424-9725.