Hey, we have to put something on the air (I work in IT support for news at one of the major networks)

That was me, here. I did the math for I forgot which poision, and what it would take to get ONE resevoir of the NYC system (The Ashokan in my example) up to the LD10 level (the amount of that poision needed to kill 10% of the people). I believe the poision I chose was Ricin, as it was the big scare going on at the time - the answer came out to be slightly more than 17 loaded tractor trailers worth

That was the day I stopped worrying so much

I know that sometime in the 1960s, someone dropped a 5 gallon bucked of LDS in there.... Made the news, that's about it

Some time ago I talked to an Eastern European who used to be on an "unconventional warfare" team in the 80's. They were trained for covert operations in foreign countries, including sabotage and terrorist attacks in the event of an all-out total war. I have seen some of their training manuals and I recall reading a chapter specifically dedicated to poisoning water and food sources. IIRC botulin was the toxin of choice.

Another thing which caught my attention was that the primary targets for such attacks were smaller cities with a population of about 100.000 and not much more. The idea being that the water supply in smaller cities is likely not as well guarded and any attack will possibly have a greater effect because a smaller quantity of toxin is necessary.

There was also some information on where the toxin is best placed. Very large reservoirs were not to be targeted because of the quantity of toxins needed. Instead, the emphasis was on finding weak spots in the system of pumps and piping that supplies water to smaller, relatively contained areas, eg. residential neighborhoods, hospitals, schools, military installations etc.

I don't remember half of what I read in there but it looked like it could actually work. Somebody really did their homework. Scary stuff.

In the last twenty-five years, the world has already seen multiple biological, chemical and radiological terrorist attacks. The only thing we haven't seen is a fully nuclear attack. Look up the Rajneeshee bioterror attacks, the Tokyo subway sarin attacks and the Alexander Litvinenko poisoning. This is not a case is the attack coming, its a case of will the next attack affect you? The answer is probably not very much, unless it kills you. Conventional, biological, chemical and radiological terrorist attacks have killed and will continue to kill people. However, like airplane crashes they either affect a very small portion of the population, or the system ceases to work. These are just features of the world. Despite the attacks that have already occurred, people still eat at salad bars, ride the subway and drink tea with Russian assassins. Um, okay, the last one might not be a great example.

Just the usual preps.

Our usual hurricane preps pretty much cover us for the most likely scenarios.

I'm more worried about drunk drivers than a terrorist attack.

What causes me sleepless nights is the thought of being injured at work or clobbered in a car accident and end up being disabled with a wife/child/mortgage to support.

Debt reduction / savings maximization are my focus now...