In Australia there are hundreds of explosive devices reported every year to the Police and dealt with by their specialised teams. This doesn’t account for all the other devices that are not reported. Security guards that work in corporate environments come across bomb threats as part of their duties and manage them appropriately.

I was working as a retail security guard for a shopping centre in Sydney suburbs when I got a phone call from the manager of a supermarket that was one of our anchor stores. This means that they are big and have a key position in the layout of the entire shopping centre.

Bomb threat phoned in

I have been part of an explosives team that bombreport built and disarmed devices so I have a good idea of what types of bombs there are around and what to do about them. Not all bombs are the same and common sense tells you that, but managers try to deal with them all using the same response plan. This is not wise and only takes a bit of extra time to build a response plan that takes into account the main types of devices. Currently I prepare emergency response plans for companies in Melbourne, so if you want to have a new look at your plans, contact me.

The bomb

I met with the manager who told me that they had a bomb threat and he told me what the male suspect had said. The content of the threat concerned me because it indicated a level of reality different from a hoax. I suggested that the manager implement his plan and I would conduct a quick search for it.

The supermarket was set up in aisles and I quickly scanned these. whybitcoinprice I found a cheap black briefcase wedged into the pool chemicals section. I considered this enough to advise evacuation immediately to the manager.

Police arrival

The manager had called the police before I got back and refused to evacuate telling me that the store would lose thousands of dollars for every minute it was closed. He was waiting for a police officer to tell him to evacuate.

What he didn’t understand is that police officers don’t tell managers to evacuate, they only suggest it because they don’t want to be sued for bad information.

The police arrived within 5 minutes. Two patrol officers had attended and they hadn’t contacted the bomb team yet until they assessed the situation.

Assessment

I informed the police of what I had found. Briefcase was in the chemical aisle and matched the description given by the caller.

It was in an area of chemicals that were highly explosive with secondary effects of toxic gases that were very dangerous to humans. ufa168live

The amount of chemicals stored were enough to make at least a 50 kilogram device and all were highly reactive

Chemical bombs are unstable and unpredictable to when the timing of the device activates so you are on the clock as soon as they put it together so to speak and it will go off when its chemical reaction tells it to.

The response

The police had a quick look and confirmed my assessment and advised the manager to evacuation but couldn’t instruct him to do so. The manager then refused to evacuate but would put safety cones on that aisle to stop shoppers going into it, artistpose but he wanted to keep all other aisles open for trade.

The police had then called the bomb team to attend and they will be there in about 10 minutes.

My shopping centre

I had a responsibility to the rest of the centre and advised the centre manager of the situation and recommended he isolate and evacuate this end of the centre where possible. He did so and started calmly moving people out.

Bomb squad arrives

The bomb team arrives and immediately go in for a look. They found that the case was a real device but had been constructed poorly so it was safe for chronicleshub them to move it away and dispose of in their control. They advised that if it had of gone off the entire supermarket would have been covered in chlorine gas and people could have died from that alone.