Ferries and Terrorism
On July 31, 2003, the following news story appeared on MSNBC:
Brock Meeks
TERRORISTS GROUPS LIKE al-Qaida have long shown interest in
maritime targets, the FBI advisory says, citing the successful bombing
of the U.S.S. Cole. Terrorists might considering broadening their
interest to less secure targets, like, which are often located
near high-traffic tourist attractions or industrial areas, such as oil
facilities.
The FBI emphasizes that it has received no specific threat
against a ferry operation. However, ferries make a tempting target,
the FBI warns, because they "have the potential to yield a high
casualty count."
Capable of hauling hundreds of people and scores of cars on
each trip, ferries on the Seattle-Bremerton route in Washington state
alone carried 2.2 million passengers and vehicles last year.But passengers on such highly traveled routes like the
Seattle-Bainbridge route, which carried 6.7 million people last year,
encounter little if any personal security measures before boarding.
The ferry industry has no formal security guidelines.
Ferry attacks have the potential to yield a high casualty count.
---Brock Meeks
Like any other activity in the United States, persons ought to be aware of the potential for terrorist behavior. And, ought to apply common sense to their precautions.
Many ferries carry passengers only. These would be more difficult for a terrorist to carry on a device capable of doing serious damage. On the other hand, auto ferries (in which a terrorist could drive on a truck full of explosives) carry fewer passengers. Every ferry is well equipped with lifeboats and flotation devices for a full load of passengers, in the event of the snking of the ship. The most serious danger to the passengers would be a burning oil-slick on the surface around the stricken boat. Aside from that, casualties would probably be minimal if a truck blew up on the decks of a ferry.
There are only a few ferries in the US that could in any realistic way be thought of as being of strategic value to terrorists. Those would fall into two categories:
COMMUTER ferries. This list is pretty well restricted to the Washington State Ferries in the Seattle area, the ferries that cross the Mississippi River in metropolitan New Orleans and near St. Louis and the Ohio River in the Cincinnati area. A few other ferries located near large cities such as Houston and Jacksonville, may carry substantial commuter loads around rush hour.
LARGE-CAPACITY ferries. A few ferries operate large vessels as principal through routes, or in the tourist season. These would include the two Lake Michigan ferries, two ferries connecting Connecticut with Long Island, Lake Champlain ferries between New York and Vermont, and the busy ferries at Port Bolivar TX, Williamsburg VA, and in eastern North Carolina. Seasonally busy ferries would include Cape May NJ and the NC Outer Banks.
However, travelers choosing to use ferries as a diversion on a road trip are unlikely to be on board a boat that would interest terrorists. Al-Qaeda would have little to gain by sinking both fisherman's cars on the Akers ferry in the Missouri Ozarks. Nevertheless, a more stringent policy concerning ferry security could very well push the budgets of many small ferries beyond the breaking point, resulting in the closing of some (if not nearly all) marginal ferries.
In my view, the most useful security regulation would be to disallow passengers from re-disembarking after vehicles have begun loading, which would eliminate any non-suicide attack.
On the other hand, ferries could become your safest option, not to mention hassle-free. When border inspections reached their peak after 9/11, the fastest way between Michigan and Canada was on the Algonac and Marine City ferries north of Detroit, which few people knew about. This may well have been true also on the Wolf Island ferries near Kingston, Ontario.
It is true that the very busy ferries are a tempting target to any terrorist, and a prudent person ought to consider those ferries in the same way they regard an airline flight, but not forgetting the much higher likelihood of surviving unharmed a ferry disaster. But it is also probably true that the real threat to most ferries is an irrational and expensive fear, not the bombs of terrorists.
In short, a terrorist is likely to consider ferries in this light: Very high visibility, almost no security, very easy to place a ton of explosives, and easy to detonate from shore. But, on the down side, even the worst imaginable damage would leave few casualties, rescue successes would be high in the near-shore shallow-water environment, there are only a few ferries that would be of strategic value, and property damage would be minimal.
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A list of All Ferries in North America