Chicago Bio-Terror Attack Could Cost $25 Billion

NU Online News Service, Aug. 7, 9:17 a.m. EDT?Abiological terrorism attack on Chicago would have an economicimpact of from $1.75 billion to $25 billion with the highestexpense if a mass home quarantine is used to contain an outbreak,according to a risk management firm estimate.

Risk Management Solutions of Newark Calif. made its calculationsas a consultant to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and LosAlamos National Laboratory.

RMS said it did its analysis as part of the TOPOFF 2 (TopOfficials) exercise conducted from May 10 to May 15 in Chicago byHomeland Security and the U.S. State Department, which looked atresponses to a simulated outbreak of terrorist planted pneumonicplague.

TOPOFF 2 also looked at Seattle local officials response to ahypothetical "dirty bomb" attack.

RMS said its analysis found that, in Chicago, the outbreakcontainment cost-including business interruption losses and costsof treating the population could be as high as $25 billion when theattack response used involved shutdowns and closings of businessand schools keeping 80 percent of the population at home.

The cost, RMS said, would be lower, $1.7 billion to $5.5billion, if the bio terror was treated with a rapid delivery ofantibiotics to the general population, "voluntary massprophylaxis."

In September, the company said it will come out with Version 2of its U.S. Terrorism Risk Mode, which will include contagiousdisease as an attack mode and examines likely response actions andeffectiveness of civil authorities.

RMS said its model quantifies terrorist target risks across thenation under a variety of attack modes from explosives andimprovised weapons to a range of chemical, biological, radiologicaland nuclear scenarios.

The model, the company said, projects principal agents of damageand loss for each attack mode. Estimates are made of insured lossesfrom property damage, business interruption and humancasualties.