Dam or reservoir targeted during 9/11

[acgoldis]

What would have happened if al-Qaeda chose to target a dam on 9/11? Take for example the Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts. Breaching the dam would flood lots of cities downstream and deprive eastern Massachusetts of drinking water.

Alternatively the terrorists commandeer one of the boats used to stock fish in the reservoir (or something similar) and use it to dump toxins in the water, causing people to get sick when they drink it.

An advantage of an attack like this would be that the attacker does not have to die in the attack (in the case of a boat attack).

There was an attack on German dams during World War II. I would assume that a high speed kamikaze jet like those used on 9/11 could do the same damage as a bomb (but don't quote me on it).

Operation Chastise - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Geon]

The higher the death toll, especially if they use toxins, the more likely the U.S. is to take off the gloves when the time comes to deal with the Taliban ad Al-Quaeda. The U.S. public will not tolerate a half-hearted response. They will demand a commensurate response which will either mean use of chemical weapons or nuclear weapons. That sounds stark and terrible but it is the simple truth. In the face of perhaps thousands dead - and here we're talking about casualties possibly much worse then our 9/11 - the U.S. as a whole will demand a major accounting for all of this.

 

[A Piece of History]

Counter-terrorism legislation becomes much more severe and the US becomes much more radical in their military response to the attacks.

 

[RamscoopRaider]

Hitting a dam with a plane is difficult, it is a low to the ground target that usually has terrain features around it, and you need to hit in the right place, and is a frankly massive structure. Attacking the damn from the rear won't work, water shields it, same with sides, there is only one possible vector and you need to hit it square, with things like bridges, trees, wires and terrain features as obstacles to deal with. For a lot of dams it would not really be possible and others difficult

Toxin, issue is need a lot of it to really have an effect when contaminating a reservoir, take your example, there are over 1.5 billion tons of water in the Quabbin reservoir. Botulinum toxin taken by mouth has a lethal dose of a microgram/kilogram of body mass, say to get 10 micrograms in a glass of water need a ratio of 50 micrograms a kilogram, 50 millgrams a ton or 50 grams a kiloton or 50 kilograms a megaton or 50 tons per gigaton of water, 75 tons for the reservoir and Botulinum is one of the nastier toxin's, getting tons and tons isn't easy

 

[RanulfC]

What would have happened if al-Qaeda chose to target a dam on 9/11? Take for example the Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts. Breaching the dam would flood lots of cities downstream and deprive eastern Massachusetts of drinking water.

Alternatively the terrorists commandeer one of the boats used to stock fish in the reservoir (or something similar) and use it to dump toxins in the water, causing people to get sick when they drink it.

An advantage of an attack like this would be that the attacker does not have to die in the attack (in the case of a boat attack).

There was an attack on German dams during World War II. I would assume that a high speed kamikaze jet like those used on 9/11 could do the same damage as a bomb (but don't quote me on it).

Operation Chastise - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Attacking a dam isn't easy and they are, well pardon the pun but, damned difficult to hurt by design. They are designed to hold back massive amounts of water and a hollow aluminium tube with some jet-fuel isn't going to leave a mark but not much damage. Like Nuclear Power plants and unlike buildings, dams are made of very thick, very heavy reinforced material that is not at ALL easy to crack. They are also harder to get to, (you 'violate' your flight plan in a more obvious manner) and probably more difficult to hit by an inexperienced pilot.

As for tampering with the water supply you have to keep in mind US water systems, (despite a few quite serious instances) is heavily monitored, processed and mixed. Getting a dose enough into that supply is difficult at best. Imagine how much agent would have to be dumped into a large lake or reservoir to ensure enough of the now highly diluted agent MIGHT make it to any individual home? So how easy is it to 'hide' that 40 foot+ power boat loaded with dozens, in not hundreds of 55 gallon drums and a crew in extreme hazmat gear? (Because YOU have to live long enough to put the agent in the water...)

Randy

 

[acgoldis]

Attacking a dam isn't easy and they are, well pardon the pun but, damned difficult to hurt by design. They are designed to hold back massive amounts of water and a hollow aluminium tube with some jet-fuel isn't going to leave a mark but not much damage. Like Nuclear Power plants and unlike buildings, dams are made of very thick, very heavy reinforced material that is not at ALL easy to crack. They are also harder to get to, (you 'violate' your flight plan in a more obvious manner) and probably more difficult to hit by an inexperienced pilot.

As for tampering with the water supply you have to keep in mind US water systems, (despite a few quite serious instances) is heavily monitored, processed and mixed. Getting a dose enough into that supply is difficult at best. Imagine how much agent would have to be dumped into a large lake or reservoir to ensure enough of the now highly diluted agent MIGHT make it to any individual home? So how easy is it to 'hide' that 40 foot+ power boat loaded with dozens, in not hundreds of 55 gallon drums and a crew in extreme hazmat gear? (Because YOU have to live long enough to put the agent in the water...)

Randy

Don't certain toxins cause trouble at concentrations of a few ppm or ppb? And as Chastise showed bombs could blow holes in the top of the dam and once that happens erosion could start taking down the rest (though that may be too slow).

 

[RanulfC]

Don't certain toxins cause trouble at concentrations of a few ppm or ppb? And as Chastise showed bombs could blow holes in the top of the dam and once that happens erosion could start taking down the rest (though that may be too slow).

Yes certain toxins do but again you will need a LOT of it to hit those concentrations in a downstream/end user supply. And keep in mind in America we PLAY in our drinking water before we use it most of the time so if people, (or large amounts of fish and wildlife) start dying around a source of water that tends to draw rapid attention and response.

And the Dam Busters were specialized raiders, specialized weapons and didn't always work either. A passenger airliner, even full of fuel isn't going to do a lot of damage to to a dam's structure. (I'm so proud I avoided saying it was damn tough... damn... ) Now pull out all the passengers and luggage and replace the mass with high explosives, ditch it right next the dam and have it sink to the bottom before exploding you might do some damage. Then again you might not.

Similarly trying to get a boat full of explosives near a dam is tough because we have special guards and sensor for such things. NOT mind you to prevent boat-bombs though that's a side-line for them but because having a boat full of tourists/ locals get sucked through the turbines is both a bad deal for PR but also will damage the turbines.

It's a lot harder than hitting an obvious and easier to find/hit skyscrapper

RAndy

 

[Ficboy]

If Al-Qaeda was even successful in destroying a dam or reservoir like with the United States Capitol in Washington D.C. then anti-terrorism legislation will be up to an eleven and the War on Terror way more severe.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

The problem is getting hold of a operational Lancaster and then modifying it to carry the Vickers Type 464 'Upkeep' type bouncing bombs (if they can get their hands on any?)

I believe that only 2 Lancaster are flying today?

And then there is the high level of expertise required to get the bouncing ball on the target

Also what music to play?

I've heard some of that isis terrorist music garbage and its not a patch on the dam-buster march

Basically I feel that such an op is just extremely unlikely - just for the lack of decent sound track alone let alone all of the operational issues and lack of expertise

 

[Paul_Sussex]

Unlikely, for all the above. But as someone who works in the utility industry, I'm amazed that we haven't been targeted.

 

[Puzzle]

I tend to think in a pre 9/11 world terrorists could have blown up a dam, just sink a boat with enough explosives next to the bottom of it and set it off. The sensors might lead to the police being called, but a few men with guns would probably delay the response long enough for the plan to go off.

It’s not as cinematic though, and that was a big part of 9/11.

 

[BlackDragon98]

I initially thought of Hoover Dam and the idea was kind of terrifying.

 

[TxAggie]

It's an interesting what-if to ponder, but I think hitting skyscrapers was the "right" idea from Al-Qaeda's perspective. The death toll could have been an order of magnitude greater if they hit it an hour or two later - as it was, they struck the first tower at 8AM before things really started filling up. The plane attacks from Boston could also hit very quickly before the feds realized something was wrong and intervened - looking it up, the time between the hijacking and final impact was only 30 minutes.

As far as other targets they could hit... let's see.

A meltdown or leak from a nuclear power plant would be disastrous, but the towers are like 2 foot thick concrete and they're too well-guarded to get into on the ground.

A refinery or chemical plant would be a softer target that could still poison a lot of water supplies, probably wouldn't need a jet to do it either. It would be as destructive as 9/11 but it'd still be a big problem.

Hoover Dam... a difficult target to hit square-on, and it's also about a million feet thick of concrete like a nuclear plant. Burning gasoline won't do anything to it, so the (considerable) kinetic energy of a jet would have to be enough to punch through it... those would be some grim but intriguing calculations to see if that is possible.

Airport... hijack a plane, circle back, and hit the terminal at full speed. It'd happen too fast to stop, but I don't think you'd get much more than a couple hundred fatalities out of it.

 

[Mad Bad Rabbit]

The Old River Control Structure in Simmesport, Louisiana. Wait for spring flood, load up a string of 10 barges, each with 2500 tons of ammonium nitrate, and allow them to break loose and fetch up against the spillway; then detonate them.

Fortunately for us, Osama bin Laden wanted showy targets not obscure ones.

 

[Catsmate]

Hitting a dam with a plane is difficult, it is a low to the ground target that usually has terrain features around it, and you need to hit in the right place, and is a frankly massive structure. Attacking the damn from the rear won't work, water shields it, same with sides, there is only one possible vector and you need to hit it square, with things like bridges, trees, wires and terrain features as obstacles to deal with. For a lot of dams it would not really be possible and others difficult

Toxin, issue is need a lot of it to really have an effect when contaminating a reservoir, take your example, there are over 1.5 billion tons of water in the Quabbin reservoir. Botulinum toxin taken by mouth has a lethal dose of a microgram/kilogram of body mass, say to get 10 micrograms in a glass of water need a ratio of 50 micrograms a kilogram, 50 millgrams a ton or 50 grams a kiloton or 50 kilograms a megaton or 50 tons per gigaton of water, 75 tons for the reservoir and Botulinum is one of the nastier toxin's, getting tons and tons isn't easy

Very well put. BTW Westport deals in grammes of Botox-A, not tonnes. There isn't enough made in a decade to achieve the contamination, by several orders of magnitude.

 

[TxAggie]

Two more thoughts while I'm on this grim topic.

-China had a chemical plant explosion in 2015 that was absolutely biblical. The death toll from it was much less than 9/11, but if you're a terrorist wanting to announce "here we are" - this would work well too.

-I think coronavirus is currently illustrating just how vulnerable we'd have been to a bio attack. A service/consumption driven American economy that gets wiped out by quarantines, a globally distributed medical supply chain that's vulnerable to shutdowns or national conflicts of interest, little research into vaccines and more obscure treatments, and a body count that's already dwarfed anything Osama did. The post-corona world is going to look a lot different than the one before it, but we were asleep at the wheel for things as simple as vaccine research and production for a very long time.

 

[Arkenfolm]

If you hit a dam during the spring floods you have a greater likelihood of causing a catastrophic failure than hitting it at any other time of the year due to the stress on the dam. There's also the possibility of hitting a weaker dam upstream that causes a flood that would then break other dams downstream but I'm not sure how many dams/rivers in the US that would be possible with (odds are "too many").

Airport... hijack a plane, circle back, and hit the terminal at full speed. It'd happen too fast to stop, but I don't think you'd get much more than a couple hundred fatalities out of it.

If it was during holiday travel at the right time of day and the right part of the airport was targeted it could possibly get a 9/11 level death toll. Maybe 2-300 on the plane and then another 2,000 in the terminal who would die from the explosion and smoke inhalation.

But you wouldn't even need a plane for that, you'd just need to pull up at the terminal with a truck loaded with explosives OKC-style and detonate it and you'd easily kill a thousand people if it was during holiday travel. Another group of terrorists would show up and shoot first responders along with anyone fleeing.

 

[GuildedAgeNostalgia]

For hydroelectric dams, where do they keep the generators/electrical facilities?

 

[Viper91]

The Old River Control Structure in Simmesport, Louisiana. Wait for spring flood, load up a string of 10 barges, each with 2500 tons of ammonium nitrate, and allow them to break loose and fetch up against the spillway; then detonate them.

Fortunately for us, Osama bin Laden wanted showy targets not obscure ones.

He also wanted practical targets. Talking about tonnes of explosive materials or poison may kill more people, but it's a lot harder and more expensive to get ahold of, and more likely to draw attention beforehand. Some of those are things that local, state, or federal agencies would also be much more on the lookout for after the 1993 WTC bombing and later the Oklahoma City bombing.

Some of the chemicals or toxins would either cost a lot of money to get, or there would be a lot of paperwork and bureaucracy to deal with to obtain stuff. It's not exactly like they can just go buy it at Walmart and store in a shed in the back yard.

 

[Nick P]

I did wonder about terrorists aiming at electrical distribution. Setting bombs or simply starting fires at multiple transformer sites across the country, knocking down pylons, pulling down wires in rural areas.
Stay behind teams could set traps or ambushes for the repair teams which means they then have to wait for armed support - further delays in fixing the problem.

Downsides:
Very little visible damage, no large smoking hole in a city.
You need a very large team to achieve the mass disruption needed.
Each team needs to do more damage than the local repair teams can fix in a week.
No power means no TV or Internet to watch, no major shocking spread of terror in peoples homes. Although being sat in the dark with no running water, a defrosting freezer and the only news coming from the car radio would be rather upsetting for many.