| Salt Lake City |
 |
 |
| GER |
12 |
16 |
7 |
35 |
 |
| USA |
10 |
13 |
11 |
34 |
|
| NOR |
11 |
7 |
6 |
24 |
|
| CAN |
6 |
3 |
8 |
17 |
|
| RUS |
6 |
6 |
4 |
16 |
|
| AUT |
2 |
4 |
10 |
16 |
|
| ITA |
4 |
4 |
4 |
12 |
|
| FRA |
4 |
5 |
2 |
11 |
|
| SUI |
3 |
2 |
6 |
11 |
|
| NED |
3 |
5 |
0 |
8 |
|
|
|
|
Security's tight, relentless
By Derek Jensen
Deseret News staff writer
We've just passed the halfway mark, and all is quiet at the most fortified Olympics in U.S. history.
But don't think the first nine days of relative tranquility at the 2002 Winter Games means security planners are resting easy just yet.
In fact, it was eight days into the last Olympics held on U.S. soil when a bomb exploded in Atlanta's Centennial Park, killing one woman and injuring scores.
"Our thing right now is to keep our vigilance at a high level," said David Tubbs, executive director of the Utah Olympic Public Safety Command. "I don't believe in fate, but I'll be damned if I tempt it."
Tubbs, who retired from the FBI two years ago, is reluctant to discuss his memories of the 1996 Atlanta bombing, which he helped investigate.
Six years later, though, Tubbs said the increased vigilance of police, the military and the public is helping protect Salt Lake City and Utah at large from repeating Atlanta's tragedy or the terrorist hijackings that crumbled the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11.
That watchfulness extends to the skies. Fighter planes and their refueling wings patrol restricted airspace over the Olympics region.
And just Thursday night, Continental Airlines Flight 263 from Houston was escorted to Salt Lake City by F-16 fighter planes after crews reported a passenger on board was acting suspicious. The passenger was interviewed after the plane landed, and authorities determined that the incident was innocuous.
The next day, passers-by in Salt Lake City reported three different suspicious packages to police. Authorities investigated and determined the devices were harmless.
While bomb technicians examined the packages Friday, representatives from two dozen federal, state and local agencies sat in a large, dimly lit room monitoring the separate investigations.
The high-tech control room is home to the Bomb Management Center — the clearinghouse for dealing with hazardous devices throughout the Olympic theater. The center, at a location authorities are keeping secret, is a typical control center with computers manned 24 hours a day and television monitors broadcasting the latest news from around the world.
Equipped with numerous cameras and other high-tech gear, security planners are able to better monitor public areas and prevent would-be bombers from leaving a bag unnoticed near a crowded area, said FBI special agent Bill Forsyth.
Forsyth said Olympic security officials could even install ion scanners similar to those at airports that can detect trace amounts of explosives.
"We also had technology installed in different places that allows us to screen people without them necessarily knowing that they're being looked at or that their bags are necessarily being checked," Forsyth said, declining to elaborate for security reasons. "There's a lot of technology available for us, and it may be deployed at certain times, depending on the nature of the event or information that's developed through intelligence sources around the world."
Forsyth knows all too well the tragedy of the Centennial Park bombing that rocked the festive atmosphere in Atlanta.
He and an ATF agent were the first to discover the pipe bomb that had been hidden inside a backpack in Centennial Park. Two security guards called police after they noticed the backpack sitting unattended. Forsyth opened the bag to hear the timer ticking down.
Unsure how much time he had left and with no tools to disarm the device, the veteran bomb technician decided the best course of action was to evacuate the area. Eight minutes into the evacuation the bomb went off.
"It just shows you how fragile this whole thing is," Tubbs said. "Regardless of the job you do, some nut can come out and do something crazy."
So far, the center has handled about 100 suspicious packages, according to Salt Lake County Fire Bureau Chief Dennis Stanley. None of the incidents has been related to the Olympics, Stanley said.
In fact, officials say the number of bomb threats and calls about suspicious packages has been lower so far than during the Atlanta Olympics, which received several thousand bomb threats in 1996, Forsyth said.
Forsyth, who's worked more than 50 special events over the past eight years, credits the drop to better screening at public places, tighter restrictions on bringing bags into venues and other gathering places and, of course, more public vigilance.
E-MAIL: djensen@desnews.com
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February 17, 2002
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