Volunteers Plan Response To Attack

By Nick Pinto
POSTED MARCH 1, 2008

At 7:30 a.m., word was received that a disaster had struck Lower Manhattan. By 8 a.m., the news was carrying reports of a rolling series of chemical weapons attacks that included several Downtown subway stations. Hundreds were dead, and thousands more flooded area hospitals. Then, at 8:30 a.m., chemical explosions rocked seven Downtown hospitals, sending the injured and the terrified streaming west towards the river.

Fortunately, this scenario was purely hypothetical, the basis for “Red Cobra Shaking,” a Feb. 25 exercise devised to help the Citizens Emergency Response Teams (CERT) from Battery Park City, Tribeca, and Southbridge Towers prepare for a possible emergency.

The CERTs arose in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, when many Downtown residents felt unprepared and inadequately protected by government agencies.

“The CERT program is based on the assumption that we can take care of our neighborhood even if something happens so that the government can’t help,” said Hank Wisner, a special assistant to the Chief of the CERT team.

Though the teams come from different neighborhoods and usually train separately, Tribeca CERT leader Jean Grillo said it makes sense to drill together.

“A lot of us here from the different neighborhoods really see us as the World Trade Center CERT,” Grillo said. “Anything that happens down here happens to all of us.”

Wisner said if government agencies are able to respond to a crisis, the teams are there to work under them and assist in any way they need. “But if for some reason the government is unable to respond, we want to be able to help ourselves and our communities,” he said.

In this exercise, emergency workers were unable to approach the site, so the residents gathered into teams—medical, traffic control, search and rescue, waterfront, and headquarters, or Emergency Operations Center—to plan their home-grown response.

Whatever the 30-minute planning session that followed may have lacked in professional order, they made up for in vibrant debate and passionate concern.

Who would direct the crowds flowing westward? Where would triage stations be established? How could private boats be best used to ferry people to safety? CERT members shuttled from group to group, coordinating their planning.

As time wound down, Anthony Notaro, assistant chief for operations, urged the groups to focus their discussions and finalize their plans.

“You have 15 more minutes to wrap this up!” he shouted over the din. “There are people out there who really need you! There’s a timeframe to this kind of drill—you can’t just keep assessing the scenario.”

Finally, the clock ran down, and each group presented its aspect of the response plan. Participants discussed and critiqued each team’s presentation, and then, satisfied, retired to the back of the room for pizza.

“This kind of scenario is unlikely, it’s true,” Wisner conceded. “But we’re trying to think outside the box. We were caught off-guard for 9/11 because we weren’t prepared. We hadn’t thought about what we would do in that situation. It’s important to a lot of people here not to be caught so unprepared again.”

[Home][Back][Search] [Advertise][Contact]
The Tribeca Trib · 401 Broadway, 5th Floor · New York, NY · 10013 · 212.219.9709