Security barriers pose safety hazard?

Oct 10, 2006 3:48 PM

The concrete and metal security barriers that appeared on Manhattan sidewalks after Sept. 11, 2001, to deter potential car bomb attacks are beginning to disappear, and security experts are saying that if they are blown up, some of the barricades could do more harm than good.
In recent weeks, planters that double as security barriers have been removed from sidewalks in front the Reuters Building at 3 Times Square and Morgan Stanley's headquarters at 1585 Broadway, The Associated Press reports. Sixty-three concrete globes that encircled the Times Square Tower are gone.
On the advice of the police department, the city's Transportation Department ordered removal of many of the barriers that flank high-rises, office buildings and museums.
Aside from obstructing pedestrian flow, a planter, if struck by an explosive, could become "weaponized," shattering into deadly shards that would go flying, counterterrorism experts say.

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