The twin shafts of light that pierce the Manhattan night are a fitting temporary memorial to those who died there last Sept. 11. The rubble at Ground Zero is almost cleared away, but the loss and pain lingers where the towers stood, like the phantom limb aches that amputees experience. While New Yorkers debate what sort of permanent monument and replacement structures are appropriate at the World Trade Center site, the Pentagon reconstruction goes rolling along as inevitably as those caissons in the Army anthem.

As President Bush's counterattack against terrorism spreads from Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Philippines, Malaysia, and possibly Iran, Iraq and North Korea, the consensus among experienced observers is not whether the next attack on U.S. soil will come, but when and with what weapons. While the military carries the fight to new fronts overseas, a huge and expensive effort to shore up defenses is under way at home.

After Sept. 11, a new term, "homeland security," became a watchword for federal and local governments. Last December, Congress provided $8.3 billion in emergency aid to enhance security at federal agencies' domestic facilities. On Oct. 8, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge took over as director of the newly formed White House Office of Homeland Security.

The president wants still more homeland security aid in the next fiscal year. In his fiscal 2003 budget proposal, sent to Congress on Feb. 4, Bush requested $38 billion for homeland security, spread among many agencies. That sum is up from $19.5 billion over the 2002 level. Most of that funding would go for non-construction activity. The $38 billion includes $11 billion for border security, an increase of $2 billion over 2002 appropriations; $5.9 billion for anti-bioterrorism programs, an increase of $4.5 billion, or more than 300%, from 2002; and $3.5 billion to cover costs of police, fire and rescue and other "first responders."

Regarding the border component, Ridge told the National Governors Association on Feb. 26 that "we won't compromise security. But there are ways we believe we can make borders more secure and still get back to the commercial interaction that's so critical to the states and the communities and the people who live on both sides." Ridge added, "You'll see quite a few new approaches to a 21st-Century border."

The bioterrorism request includes $75 million for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to find improved ways to decontaminate buildings hit by bioterrorism. It also includes funds to upgrade public health laboratories.

SAFER BUILDINGS Security can be improved at several points: curtain walls, setbacks, access control, windows and structural members. (Illustration courtesy of Weidlinger Associates Inc.)

Among construction agencies, the Corps of Engineers received $139 million in emergency funds last year to protect key facilities. Funds will go for additional operating expenses, vulnerability assessments and "hard" protection of facilities, Mike Parker, former assistant Army secretary for civil works, told a House appropriations subcommittee on Feb. 27. He also said that the Corps expects to finish its vulnerability assessments by the end of April.

Many of the Corps' leading anti-terrorism experts are working these days at its Waterways Experiment Station in Vicksburg, Miss., which houses four of the organization's seven research and development labs. Col. Jerry Love is working on risk-based anti-terrorism planner (ATP) software for troop training. Two civilians in the forefront of the national anti-terrorism effort are also working for the Corps at Vicksburg. Paul F. Mlakar is heading an American Society of Civil Engineers study of the structural response of the Pentagon during the Sept. 11 attack. The report, along with another regarding the World Trade Center towers collapse (ENR 3/18 p. 14), will be released in April. Reed Mosher, who heads the Corps' building survivability team, constructs structural scale models and blows them apart to study building performance.

Interior Secretary Gale Norton told the House panel that the Bureau of Reclamation is seeking $27 million for security in fiscal 2003, nearly a third of DOI's total security request of $89 million. Much of the money is for large dam protection.

With so much money already committed to the pipeline from the public sector and more expected on the private side as tenants and insurers begin to push for safer buildings, it is hardly surprising that engineering, architecture and consulting firms are reconfiguring themselves and forming new alliances to take advantage of an emerging new market. In New York City, Parsons Brinckerhoff Inc., an engineering consultant with a long history of transportation expertise, has formed an alliance with Weidlinger Associates Inc., structural engineers known for structural design and blast forensics work for the federal government and other high-profile clients.

And there are newcomers, such as R.S. Hahn Co., a Quincy, Calif., firm incorporated in February by three ex-Federal Bureau of Investigation agents with counter-terrorism backgrounds. Another partner worked for the Los Angeles Police Dept.'s bomb squad. The firm's first major contract involved infrastructure threat assessment and security recommendations for the Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power. "When we need engineering expertise, we work with Boyle Engineering Corp. in Los Angeles," says founding partner Rick Hahn.

"We can do any number of things to make a building more secure," says Robert Smilowitz, a Weidlinger principal. "We can protect the perimeter, engineer to prevent progressive collapse, isolate internal threats from spaces that are occupied and mitigate damage from flying debris." Each measure costs money, notes Tod Rittenhouse, another Weidlinger principal, "and when it's all said and done, it's not about protecting the building–it's about protecting the people inside."

Battle-Tested Pentagon Will Add More Protection By Sherie Winston ENR Even before the events of Sept. 11 forced Pentagon construction officials to rethink security at the Dept. of Defense headquarters, upgrades were already under way.      The first section of a multiyear renovation of the 60-year-old, five-story, 6.5-million-sq-ft building, was just days away from completion when a hijacked airliner plunged into the lower floors. New steel-reinforced, blast-resistant windows that had been installed in the section, known as Wedge One, were credited with saving lives and lessening the impact of the disaster. Spiral rebar, used in the original construction, aided by kevlar cloth newly installed between the windows to catch masonry fragments or other debris, also made a difference.      Remote Facility now screens mail. (Illustration courtesy of Dept. of Defense) DOD officials have taken that lesson to heart. When the rebuilding effort is complete and the remaining four wedges are renovated, there will be approximately 1,750 blast-resistant windows along the exterior walls. Kevlar or a similar ballistic cloth will also be added. Spiral rebar will be incorporated into the rebuilt section and a higher strength concrete than the standard 4,000 psi is being used.      Walker Lee Evey, Pentagon renovation program manager, says a range of "alternative technologies" is being considered, many developed in recent months. Evey is particularly interested in a sprayed application that hardens similar to a pickup bed liner. It is "remarkable," he adds.      Another Pentagon security component, planned long before 9/11 but now deemed more important, is a new 250,000-sq-ft remote delivery facility that receives and screens all incoming mail and packages. The 38-dock loading facility receives an average of 250 trucks per day delivering thousands of packages.      Evey's staff has done an extensive amount of "force protection" analysis, deciding how to improve building performance. Three categories of recommendations emerged: fire, blast and chemical-biological-radiological threat. Many of these strategies are "common-sensical," he admits.

Feature: Risk assessment

Feature: Environmental design

Feature: Government

Feature: Buildings

Feature: Bioterrorism

Feature: Transportation

Feature: Glass safety