Collapse of inhabited buildings has been demonstrated to be the major cause of fatality in bomb attacks. The potential for collapse often can be mitigated through relatively small additions to enforced standoff or simple, often localized, hardening measures. Structural screening to mitigate collapse should not be an option in a practical bomb defense plan for business. Virtually every building from which business is conducted has windows. Many buildings have exterior walls of glass curtainwall.
Some buildings use interior glass walls for light transmission with sound privacy.
Even more important, the trend is to use more and more glass in commercial structures. Flying and falling glass is the primary source of injury in bomb attacks. Although breakage can only be eliminated through hardened glazing and frames, simpler injury mitigation measures such as space planning, drapes and the like can greatly reduce exposure of the inhabitants and passers-by to serious glass injuries. It should be noted that bombs are a neighborhood phenomenon and glass is likely to break, fly and fall from many neighborhood buildings. Our glass plan must include mitigation of injuries from all flying and falling glass resulting from an explosive attack.