In Boston, the burning hull of the Matthew was drifting toward the Tobin Bridge, while the Charlestown, East Boston, and Chelsea waterfronts within a 700-yard radius were soon ablaze from the heat. Buildings shook, windows shattered, and people in the vicinity were thrown to the ground when the LNG fire ignited the nearby jet fuel storage tanks that serviced Logan airport. Mayor Menino found himself living out his worst nightmare. The initial estimates were that more than 10,000 people were dead or seriously injured, mostly with burns. Boston’s world-class hospitals were completely overwhelmed by the casualties. In addition to the hundreds of homes and buildings along the city’s waterfront, “Old Ironsides” and the Coast Guard’s largest base in New England had been lost in the fire. The asphalt roadway on the Tobin Bridge had melted, and the Massport engineers reported that entire bridge might have to be demolished. Logan Airport was effectively shut down for all but emergency aircraft because there was no fuel for the planes. Because of a prevailing northerly wind and effective firefighting, the Everett facility miraculously escaped complete destruction, but it would be out of commission for some time as repairs were made. The Mystic Station power plant, which depended on it for fuel, had been shut down, leaving more than a million New Englanders without electricity.

In Long Beach, the tanker was so large that initial explosion from the EFP was barely felt on the bridge of the ship. However, a member of the crew immediately reported that it appeared that it had been struck by a small boat. The harbor pilot acted quickly, directing the chief engineer to stop the engines, ordering that the anchor be released, and radioing a Mayday. Thousands of gallons of crude oil were pouring out of the rupture in the hull and the Mercury Glory was on fire. But the quick action of the pilot prevented the ship from getting too close to the entrance of the middle harbor, where it would have blocked the main channel to the oil terminal. It would take three days to douse the fire, but the ship never sank. Tugs were able to nudge the vessel to the side of the channel so that shipping traffic could move again, but the oil spill was the worst maritime environmental disaster to hit the US since the grounding of the Exxon Valdez in 1989.

The attacks on Boston and Los Angeles soon had national and global reverberations. Energy prices surged on global markets, rising to more than $100 per barrel. All of the nation’s ports were put on their highest alert, effectively closing them to all inbound traffic. Given the absence of spare refinery capacity and the limited supplies of available refined fuels, gasoline prices soon rose above $6 a gallon. The container ships that crisscross the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean with the supplies that support the global manufacturing and retailing sectors began to fill the anchorages on the West and East coasts. Many could not be rerouted, since they are too big to transit through the Panama Canal and only a handful of megaports can accommodate them. Since 60 percent of the world’s container fleet is at sea at any given time, the port closure generated a domino effect. With so many vessels unable to discharge their cargo, overseas terminals recognized that they must not compound the problem and stopped loading ships destined for the US. Since those terminals had no place to accommodate the scheduled deliveries of arriving cargo, they closed their gates to incoming trucks and trains and stopped servicing inbound feeder vessels. These conveyances become stranded outside the terminals, weighed down with shipments they could not deliver. Around the world, goods started piling up at factories and warehouses as the global transportation system became gridlocked.

Terrorist attacks do not come with the warning of a major hurricane. Even when they are over, no one really knows whether follow-on attacks may be in the offing and where they are likely to be directed. This is an important difference from natural disasters. While an earthquake or tsunami may come with little or no warning, it has a clear beginning and end. But an act of catastrophic terrorism inevitably generates a wider and more enduring sense of vulnerability. Should the next attack on the US look something like the scenario outlined above, mayors and everyday citizens of port cities will ask themselves, “If it could happen to Boston and Long Beach, why couldn’t it happen to us?

Sadly, despite the passage of time since the 9/11 attacks, Washington is unlikely to provide a satisfying answer. As it has barely gone through the motions of improving protective measures on the home front, especially within ports and at facilities that can handle dangerous substances, there is not much to point to that can reassure local elected officials or the general public. Further, the persistent problems that continue to afflict US intelligence efforts, both abroad and at home, do not bode well for early detection and interception of terrorist operations. The challenge is compounded by the fact that terrorists can come from friendly countries that make it easy to fly to and from the US. They may have backgrounds like Khalid’s that are not likely to earn them a place on a watch list. And they can align themselves with what appears to be a growing number of American citizens who are willing to be radicalized out of a sense of shared grievance with Muslims in the Middle East.