Computer models aid preparation for terrorism

Published 9:00 pm Sunday, July 3, 2005

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. – Deep inside the cavelike laboratories of the legendary research center that created the atomic bomb, scientists have begun work on a Manhattan Project of a different sort.

In the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, they have been constructing the most elaborate computer models of the United States ever attempted. There are virtual cities inhabited by millions of virtual individuals who go to work, shopping centers, soccer games and anywhere else their real life counterparts go. And there are virtual power grids, oil and gas lines, water pipelines, airplane and train systems.

The scientists build them. And then they destroy them.

On a recent weekday at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, researcher Steve Fernandez took several power relay plants in the Pacific Northwest offline with a few clicks of his keyboard while Kristin Omberg and Brent Daniel were working up mathematical models that calculated the worst places to release biological agents in San Diego.

“We’re trying to be the best terrorists we can be,” said James Smith, who is working on simulations of a smallpox virus released in Portland, Ore. “Sometimes we finish and we’re like, ‘We’re glad we’re not terrorists.’”

The Los Alamos experiments are part of the Homeland Security Department’s efforts to harness technology to aid the war on terror. Like government “data mining” projects that use flight itineraries, credit card reports and other data and try to find patterns to predict who might be a likely terrorist, the simulations are attempts to guess the bigger picture.

The government is using the simulations to provide options in the event of a real terrorist attack. The information is so sensitive that most of the lab’s work is classified, and the physical facility is secured with its own experimental technologies. If the simulations got into the wrong hands, the researchers say, they could be used as the ultimate weapon against Americans.

“It would be a terrorist recipe for doing something terrible,” Smith said.

Some urban planners have criticized the project for its cost – each simulation can cost tens of millions of dollars – and have argued that such modeling can never be precise. But advocates say the exercise is providing crucial information for protecting the country.

The models have helped officials pinpoint and prioritize where changes need to be made. Fernandez’s work has led to upgraded security at certain power plants. Omberg and Daniel have created biosensors – which can detect a variety of biological threats – that have been placed in areas of major cities that the computer program calculated were vulnerable, such as near sports arenas or transportation hubs.

Smith’s findings have been a major component of the debate over whether it’s necessary to synthesize enough smallpox vaccine for the entire country. He found that in the event of an outbreak, targeted vaccination would work almost as well as mass vaccination if officials moved quickly to establish quarantine zones for those infected.

The scientists continuously run the simulations, which operate about 100 times faster than real time, testing actions such as closing the airport, quarantining a neighborhood or shutting down workplaces.

The biggest challenge simulation researchers face is that it’s unlikely they’ll ever know how accurate they were until a real attack occurs. The only system that’s been tested against a real life event is Fernandez’s program for how hurricanes will affect the electricity grid.