From Barricades to Booths, Balancing Convenience and Security
Low tech can play an essential security role in protecting many critical infrastructure sites.
For example, the United States Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation uses swing beam barricades (Delta Scientific) to protect the nation’s water diversion, delivery, storage and hydroelectric generation projects. The bureau installed the anti-terrorist barricades at many of the nation’s best-known damns to close off one or two lanes of a roadway and provide counter terrorist level protection against vehicle attack. Crash tested, such barricades stop a 15,000-pound (66.7 kN) vehicle traveling 50 mph (80 kph) with zero penetration, equivalent to 1.2-million foot pounds of kinetic energy.