Responding to terrorist attacks and natural disasters: a case study using simulation

The heightened threat of terrorism has caused governments worldwide to reconsider their plans for responding in the immediate aftermath to large-scale catastrophic incidents. This paper discusses the use of discrete event simulation modeling to understand how a fire service might position its resources before an attack takes place, to best respond to a combination of different attacks at different locations if they happen. Two models are built for this purpose. The first model deals with mass decontamination of a population following biological or chemical attack - aiming to study resource requirements (vehicles, equipment and manpower) necessary to meet performance targets. The second model deals with the allocation of resources across regions - aiming to study cover level and response times, analyzing different allocations of resources, both centralized and decentralized. Contributions to theory and practice are outlined.