Security barriers to be rushed in for Vancouver Marathon following festival attack

The Vancouver marathon is expected to bring massive crowds to the streets of Vancouver a week after a deadly attack at a community celebration.

A shipment of security barriers destined for Vancouver has been fast tracked to ensure the Vancouver Marathon is sufficiently protected, one week after a vehicle attack at a cultural festival killed 11 and injured dozens more.

Peter Whitford, CEO of security company Meridian Rapid Defense Group, says a supply of barriers had been ordered by the Vancouver Police Department in February and were due to be delivered around May 16.

Following the tragic attack on Saturday at the Lapu-Lapu Day Filipino festival, the company has ramped up efforts to deliver 44 security barriers, a trailer, and the staff necessary to help deploy them, to the city before the BMO Vancouver Marathon on Sunday.

“We’re going to provide this at no cost to the city of Vancouver to ensure that we can work with them to make this event as safe as we possibly can, as quickly as we can, after the aftermath of last weekend,” said Whitford.

Whitford commends the VPD for doing a “spectacular job at assessing the risk,” prior to the FIlipino event, ensuring that they looked at the risk factors and deemed them to be low, such that protection wouldn’t be required.

However the incident that unfolded on Saturday highlighted how any event where “people mingle with traffic” needs perimeter security standards in place, Whitford said.

“I think the risk profile today is higher than it has been for many, many years,” he said.

“People will take to using vehicles for a very high impact when it comes to trying to do damage or harm to people. The impact of using a vehicle where people are in crowded places has definitely increased over the years.”

The U.S.-based company began in 2005 with an aim of protecting the military in war zones.

When a cargo truck was deliberately driven into crowds of people celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, France, in 2016, killing 80 people and injuring hundreds more, Whitford says there was a shift in ensuring the safety of the military to “everyday people doing everyday activities.”

The security company’s star product, the Archer 1200 barrier set for Vancouver next month, was upgraded as a result to cater to the growing demand, he says. Adjustments were made to ensure it was mobile and easy to transport and allowed emergency access where needed.

“We combined all of that with the speed of deployment, so a one-person deployment will be able to shut down both ends of a street in under 10 minutes,” he said. The barriers are crash tested four to five times a year, and are available in over 20 different configurations to suit any and all manner of events.

Whitford says the company works hard to ensure the barriers seamlessly blend into an event by having them rendered with the logo and colours of the city hosting them.

“It’s that type of synergy that we work with, so they’re not looking at something that is a war zone, they’re looking at something that is complementary with what this city is trying to do,” he says.

In the years since the attack in Nice in 2016, Meridian’s barriers have become a regular fixture at parades and large-scale events around the States, including the Rose Parade in Pasadena on New Year’s Day, the NFL Draft, the Super Bowl and the Grand Prix in Las Vegas, alongside those internationally.

Whitfield says his company had provided the city of New Orleans with its 1200 Archer barriers before the devastating truck attack that took place on New Year’s Day this year. The barriers that had been provided, however, were not deployed. If they had, the event would have had “a very different” outcome, he says.

“We believe that there wouldn’t have been the number of fatalities that existed,” says Whitford.

“So, when you have a product and you have equipment to protect people, you have to make sure that you are using it, and you have to determine what risks are going to be associated with what events,” he said, adding how there is a “high sense of urgency” to guarantee such mass gatherings are protected.