Safeguarding Infrastructure // by Christopher Doyle

Our ability to protect America against terrorist threats and the natural hazards of tomorrow depends upon our ability to harness the ideas and innovations of today. For this reason, the U.S Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate is working to develop new technologies and integrate existing ones to create homeland security solutions.

A major focus of that effort centers on preparedness — the key to protecting national infrastructure and facilitating lifesaving responses in the event of an incident. The Infrastructure and Geophysical Division (IGD) of the S&T Directorate is working to find methods and technologies which will improve our ability to protect buildings, facilities, and other kinds of physical structures. IGD is also considering various techniques which will prevent cascading effects of man-made and natural disasters that can lead to even more catastrophic consequences.

IGD serves a number of customers at the federal level, including the DHS Office of Infrastructure Protection (OIP) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). These two DHS components provide the direction that the S&T Directorate needs in developing its R&D agenda. Ultimately, OIP and FEMA are portals to a vast base of customers who are the end users of new methods and technologies. For OIP, this involves access to the eighteen sectors of critical infrastructure, from coast to coast. FEMA largely represents the approximately two million first responders and emergency managers in the United States. Through this type of coordination, IGD has been able to form numerous partnerships with other agencies, national laboratories, universities, and within private industries.

Here are some examples of projects underway:

Strengthening bridges

On 1 August 2007 Minnesota’s I-35W bridge over the Mississippi River collapsed during the evening rush hour. The main spans of the bridge fell into the river and onto its banks, killing thirteen people and injuring approximately 100 more. The collapse of this bridge illustrated the human and economic consequences that can result from such an event. Similarly, a terrorist attack on critical bridge components could produce catastrophic results. DHS is looking to scientists and engineers for technologies that will strengthen bridges and make them more secure.

Through a partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Engineer Research and Development Center, IGD is testing current bridge designs and investigating advances in steel, reinforced concrete, and other structural materials to provide additional protection from a terrorist attack. This project is focused primarily on the cables and towers of cable-stayed