Safety & Security

Our Villa is equiped with a Safe Room and some extra Security Items.

The Safe Room, ExxonMobil has determined that it’s a necessity, along with the iron bars on the outside of the windows, the iron gates on the inside of the doors, the anti-shatter film on the glass windows & doors, and the sheer Kevlar curtains at the windows. Not all the houses in the compound have them, only the houses for the EM employees. There was an incident at the compound in 2004 at that time, EM pulled all the families out of KSA & moved them to Dubai. The men stayed on the compounds during the week & were sent to Dubai on the weekends to be with their families. Last year, EM determined that it was safe to send families back to KSA, but only if there were additional safety measures in place.

In addition to the reinforced concrete walls of the safe room, it has 3 interior deadbolt locks on the metal door & a telephone. The compound has an alarm that will sound if there is an emergency. It will also sound in our homes. We are to barricade ourselves, with our emergency supplies, in the safe room until we receive a call from someone on our telephone tree. (we have to have that list posted in the safe room)

All the doors have double locks, and the metal bar doors on each door have 2 locks on them. All the homes here in KSA are built with concrete cinder blocks instead of wood & sheetrock. The sheer blast curtains are about 3 foot longer than they need to be & have heavy weights in the hem. That way if there is a blast, the curtain will take most of any glass that breaks & will still hold it in, even with a blast force pushing the curtains back.

To enter the compound, you must go over several large speed bumps, through a concrete obstacle section, past  armed KSA soldiers who check IDs before admitting anybody, turn a sharp corner, past a truck with a mounted machine gun manned by two additional KSA soldiers, over more speed bumps, past another obstacle section, more speed bumps, another obstacle section, be stopped for private security to check under the car for foreign objects while more KSA soldiers armed with a mounted machine gun watch, another sharp turn, now between 2 seven foot concrete walls, more speed bumps, another obstacle section, more speed bumps before you get to the 10 foot outer wall of the compound. There,  the entrance & exit gates are located on either side of the security office. In the reinforced office window facing out, you will see another mounted machine gun. You will also encounter a 3 ft metal barrier that retracts underground when the first of two solid metal gates are opened. If you have not been previously identified as living in the compound, another soldier will verify that you have legitimate business in the compound (by phone calls to authorized persons) before dropping a second barrier & opening the second solid metal gate. Once inside, we are protected by the 10 ft concrete wall topped with 2 1/2 ft of coiled razor wire.

Each section of homes is centered around either a pool or a courtyard. There is a concrete wall around each section. In some sections it is only about 3 1/2 feet high. The wall behind my house is about 6 feet high.

I try not to think about the safe room & security measures very often. If I’m downstairs I will usually walk up to use a different bathroom. I believe EM stays on top of things and will do everything they can to protect us. If it’s not enough, well we weren’t going to live forever anyway & my kids will be very well taken care of by EM. Don’t know what else I can do about it. I do feel safe here, both in & outside of the compound. That’s not to say that I don’t sometimes feel a little uneasy, but that’s true of anyplace I’ve ever been, including Baytown. I don’t worry about safety here, just try to stay aware of what’s going on around me. I feel that I’m much safer here than I would be if I went to El Paso, or any other border town, although I really wasn't planning to visit any of them. 

EA in KSA