I've never flown out of MDW and experienced it being anything other than a complete zoo. They're unprepared on the average day, let alone for something like this.
Originally Posted by
PushingTin
What I find brilliant is that they scan people and then have them step out of the machine. And if you do find something????? How about keeping people in the bullet proof tube so the blast is vented out the top, not across the check point.
Seriously, do they not expect someone to light off what ever then have once they are discovered?
People don't ask "And then...." nearly enough.
Out the top? You mean out the front and back, where the blue shirts are standing on one side and a queue of passengers waiting on the other? I've never looked closely at the construction of the scanners, never having gone through one despite many hundreds of thousands of miles of travel, but is that glass bulletproof? Even if it was, how much would that actually contain an explosion?
Also, if the goal was to attack the checkpoint itself, it seems likely such an attack would take place before the perpetrator ever stepped foot into the scanner. Why would they? There are far more people in line for the machines than after. And stepping into the scanner is asking to be discovered. Unless they think they can actually get something through, and just hit the panic button if caught.