Large Event Public Protection Plan With Juneau Ironman Case Study

Abstract

Due to the increase in large public events being targeted by lone wolf terrorists since September 11, 2001, large sporting events are being categorized by United States Department of Homeland Security as soft targets for potential attacks. (Martin, 2016) The Ironman Group identified Juneau, Alaska, as a premier site for conducting an Ironman Event in August 2022 and is expected to be repeated through 2024. The Juneau fire and police departments have limited resources to support an event of this magnitude. Due to past malicious incidents that have taken place during large public events, the Juneau Ironman event raised concerns regarding local responders’ ability to respond to possible hazardous situations and initiated requests for augmented support from federal, and state agencies for the event. Many project managers for these events include and conduct varying levels of emergency response planning. However, emergency prevention and reaction planning is only sometimes included in event project plans or applied for similar-sized events. Using the case study of the Juneau, Alaska Ironman event held in summer of 2022, this project created a large-scale Public/Participant Protection Plan to help reduce the likelihood of attacks from taking place during the event and minimize the effects of attacks if they occur. A Schedule Template was also created, and its performance was assessed.