The Heroic Response to Terror: The Case of Oklahoma City

• Author: Morton J. Tenzer,Carol W. Lewis,Tony Harrison
• DOI: 10.1177/009102609902800409
• Published date: 01 December 1999
• Date: 01 December 1999

The Heroic Response

to

Terror:

The Case

of

Oklahoma City

Carol

W. Lewis

Morton

J.

Tenzer

Tony

Harrison

The

deadliest incident of domestic terrorism in the U.S. has special significance for

human resource management because the target was government employees. Sixty

percent

of the 168 fatalities and 40 percent of the 647 injured were federal and state

government employees in Oklahoma City. Words and numbers inadequately depict

the tragic human toll of this unnatural disaster and its intense effect on many lives;

the human costs are still emerging. The authors examine two sets of ethical

issues

in

human resource management that arose during the extended, dangerous, and frus-

trating

rescue operation in which thousands of emergency rescue workers, medical

and

public safety personnel, city employees, corrmiunity organizations, and many

others

participated.

First,

ethical

issues

emerged from the tension between the con-

cepts of responders' heroism and their professionalism, including the duty of compe-

tence.

For some, the aftermath of their experience is marked by

signs

of stress, which

is insufficiently addressed by federal programs. Second, early in the rescue, core ethi-

cal

values clashed in a profound ethical dilemma in which disinterested expertise

serving the public interest vied with urgent, individual need. Because courageous

response to the latter meant disregarding standard emergency rescue procedure but

was rewarded with the highest organizational honor, emergency personnel are left

with ambiguous operational and ethical guidelines. The authors conclude that a sense

of

proportion about human achievement in extraordinary circumstances encourages

realistic

views

about routine professional capacities, allows for normal human frail-

ties, and thereby contributes to a supportive work environment.

The

deadliest

incident

of

domestic

terrorism

in U.S.

history

that

occurred

on the

morning

of

April

19, 1995, has

particular

sigruficance

for

public

administrators.!

A

bomb

targeted

government

employees

in

the Alfred P.

Murrah

Federal Building in the

central

business

district

of

Oklahoma

City, the

state

capital

and 29th

most

populous

US city.

Words

inadequately

depict

the

tragic

human

toll: the explosion claimed 168

lives,

injured

674

people,

and

directly

touched

the lives of

many

thou-

sands

of

rescue

workers,

volunteers,

families, and

friends.

Among

the

victims 19

children

were

killed, 57

children

injured,

30

orphaned,

and

another

219 lost one parent.2 Fifty-nine

percent

(101) of the fatalities

and 21

percent

of the

wounded

were

federal

government

employees,

while

state

employees

accounted

for

another

3 fatalities and 126 (19

percent)

of the

wounded.3

Dollar costs climbed well

above

the $650

million

figure

estimated

by the

governor's

task

force in May

1995.*

The

human

costs are still

emerging;

this

unnatural

disaster

had a

profound

effect on

many

lives, the

community,

and the

nation.

Public

Personnel

Management

Volume

28 No. 4

Winter

1999 6/7

The

long, dangerous, and frustrating rescue operation generated signifi-

cant and complex ethical issues. Some of these are generic to

emergency

management, such as an emphasis on body count as a

proxy measure of an incident's significance and the preeminence of the

privacy of survivors and victims' families over other values. Other

ethical

issues arise in the realm of national policy, as Congress and the

president sought to respond effectively to the threat of domestic

terrorism

through

the Anti-Terrorist and

Effective

Death Penalty Act of

1996,

presidential directives, executive reorganizations of counter-

terrorist efforts, and public reassurances.^

Still

other facets of the response in Oklahoma City raise ethical issues

for

emergency personnel as first responders, and therefore have impli-

cations

for

human

resource management in the public sector. With

respect to emergency management specifically, Waugh and Hy point

out,6

One

of the

more

telling

applications

of the

fundamental

values

of a

society

can

be

found

in how

that

society

responds

to

risk,

particularly

risk

that

may

result

in

major

losses of

human

life

and/or

property.

How

society

prepares

for and

invests

in

programs

to

prevent

or lessen the

effects

of

such

disasters

demon-

strates

the

values

placed

on

safety

and

security,

the

capacity

of its

political

and

administrative

structures,

the

dominant

political

and

economic

interests

in the

decision

making

process,

and the

technical

expertise

that

can be

brought

to

bean

As

Peter May notes, emergency management is "a function of values

(what ought to be done) and of capability (what can be done)."?

The

tensions among professional duties, personal moral imperatives,

public image, and the responsibilities and values to which they speak

emerged dramatically and urgently in the response to the bombing.

Ethical

issues arose from the tension between the concepts of rescuers'

heroism on one

hand,

and professionalism on the other; this tension is

compounded by the myth-creating compulsions of victims, the media,

witnesses,

and government officialdom. The myth intensifies some

responders' persistent, intense stress,

itself

largely ignored by public

policy.

In a clash of core values in the operation's early hours, a

profound ethical dilemma pitted valor against obedience and personal

compassion against professional

duty;

disinterested expertise serving

the public interest vied with the urgency of immediate, individual

need.

Because

deviations from

standard

operating procedures in

effect

were

rewarded

with organizational accolades, emergency personnel are

left

with ambiguous behavioral guidelines.

618

Public

Personnel

Management

Volume 28 No. 4 Winter 1999