"Terrorism and Its Impact on the Construction Industry"

Book excerpt: This paper focuses on the impact that the 9/11 terrorist attacks have had on the U.S. construction industry. The paper breaks the construction project life cycle down into three phases -- Initiation, Design, and Procurement/Construction -- and examines the impact the attacks have had on each one. In terms of the Initiation Phase of construction, the attacks have had an impact on the kinds of projects that are being funded today. For example, the workloads of certain sectors of the construction industry, such as force protection, have increased exponentially since 9/11. Another impact to this phase is how contracts are now structured to protect the interests of certain contractual parties. With regard to the Design Phase, the author reviews changes that are being incorporated into building design to help mitigate the effects of a terrorist attack. Features that were once considered too costly to incorporate into a design are now being included. Many new projects are including design modifications to increase the survivability of building residents. Both public and private organizations are feeling the need to protect their workers. The Procurement/Construction Phase also has seen changes as a result of 9/11. In the Federal Government there was immediate action to improve the security surrounding federal facilities. The fastest way to accomplish this was to bypass the more traditional procurement approaches and to instead use procurement strategies that allowed projects to be fast-tracked, such as design-build. A result of this was a sharp increase in secured construction, which brought about the need for more contractors to have the capability to perform secured facility construction.