Evacuation Communication
Terrorism is an action against people. If people are not terrorized then the actions are ineffectual – some might even argue that if the people are terrorized but fail to respond as anticipated (e.g. Osama Bin Laden wants US influence out of the Mid East and one might argue he’s making very little progress) then the terror has also failed. In any case, the defense against terrorism, i.e. security, is also an action that’s based on people. In protecting people from terror (presumably involving some harm) security is on successful if people feel safe. This is why Security Theater is often effective. Make people feel safe, not terrorized and you are effectively defeating the end goal of terrorists. Conversely, if you trigger an alarm and fail to explain the reason, people feel less safe and in some cases, more terrorized by the very organizations that are trying to defend them.
We were traveling on the London Tube the other day and after stopping at Green Park an announcement came on the loudspeaker that the station was being evacuated. The doors were open and the train was stopped – there was no explanation and so people started getting off the train to evacuate. This apparently was not the intended behavior as the train operator quickly corrected us to stay on the train. With the platform clear the train sped off to the next station. A couple stops later we got out and never again to hear about the incident. Does this make us feel safe? Sudden evacuation and conflicting or missing information, while rarely causing as much physical harm as destructive terrorism can have tremendous psychological effects. Security is not a matter of protecting numbers of people from harm, to be effective security must make people feel safe.