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June 13, 1998
Giuliani's $15.1 Million 'Emergency Control Center'
By KIT R. ROANE
NEW YORK -- Having tamed squeegee men and cabbies, murderers and
muggers, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is now bracing for a whole other
order of urban treachery and cataclysm by building a $15.1 million
emergency control center for his administration -- bullet-proofed,
hardened to withstand bombs and hurricanes, and equipped with food
and beds for at least 30 members of his inner circle.
The ambitious project, which will sprawl over 46,000 feet in one of
the smaller buildings of the World Trade Center complex, will be
large enough to accommodate at least 50 different city, state and
federal agencies, and will allow them to coordinate responses to a
myriad of disasters, from the smallest sewer explosion to the
largest nerve gas attack.
Among its amenities will be back-up generators in case of power
failures, a storage tank with enough water to last at least a week,
and whiz-bang technology that will include a secure "red" phone for
the mayor and video-conferencing, so he can see and talk to the
president of the United States, if necessary.
Saying that the facility is "not a bunker" meant as a safety haven
for the mayor, Jerome Hauer, head of the city's Office of Emergency
Management, noted that New York City's emergency response system had
become a model for other cities and said that the planned center was
a natural next step in keeping that lead.
"This is something the city has needed for a long time, a
state-of-the-art center with a sophisticated communications system,
that is survivable so the city can continue to function," he said.
"If there is a citywide blackout, a hurricane, a blizzard, this is
the facility that will allow us to keep working, to make sure that
people are not in jeopardy."
But the news of the center's construction troubled many in city
government, especially City Council members, who were not notified
of the project. Some noted that the existing command center on the
eighth floor of police headquarters has functioned admirably during
a variety of storms, blackouts and terrorist attacks. Councilwoman
Kathryn Freed, whose district will house the new center, also
questioned whether the investment was fiscally prudent at a time
when the mayor has threatened to cut funding for senior citizens
centers, city hospitals and services for the poor.
"At a time when the mayor is screaming and yelling about pork in
city government and trying to cut city services that keep libraries
and day care centers open, it seems bizarre to me that the city
would be putting nearly $16 million into a rented space that the
city doesn't even own," Ms. Freed said.
"Making a $16 million improvement to another guy's building?" she
said. "I sure hope this is a 99-year lease."
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
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June 14, 1998
Top of Page
Mayor Defends Plan to Build Crisis Center
By KIT R. ROANE
Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani defended his plan to build a $15 million
emergency control center in the World Trade Center complex
yesterday, as emergency experts questioned its viability, City
Council members complained that they had not been consulted and
radio hosts turned it into a punch line.
The Mayor said the project was not intended merely to be a bunker,
where select city officials would be safe, as some critics have
suggested. Rather, he said, it would be a secure control center
where emergency operations could be directed in case of a disaster.
"This is really an attempt," he said, "to put the city for the next
20 years in a position where it can deal with the kinds of
emergencies that might be unique to America's biggest city, its most
densely populated city, and the best-known city in the world. And I
would think that even City Council members would refrain from
playing politics with this."
But Council members could not resist. Calling the Mayor's actions
increasingly bizarre, the City Council Speaker, Peter F. Vallone,
said, "If he wants to build a bunker for the only people he trusts,
all he needs is a phone booth."
Other Council members continued to accuse the Mayor of concealing
his plans for the center and questioned the need for it at a time
when he has threatened to cut some city services for the elderly,
youth and the poor.
The Mayor pointed out, however, that the center was plainly listed
on page 995 of the capital budget adopted on June 5. He said the
line items read: "Mayor's Office of Emergency Management. Design,
$1.5 million. Construction, $15.1 million."
"This is in the capital budget for this year," Giuliani said. "I
know that there are some Council members that don't read the budget,
but that's their problem. This money has already been obligated in
terms of contract."
The Mayor refused to provide details about the center, saying such
information could help those who "want to take advantage of
victimizing the city." Administration officials, however, said it
would occupy 46,000 feet on the 23d floor of 7 World Trade Center,
bringing together more than 100 representatives from city, state and
Federal agencies, as well as public utilities, in times of
emergency.
Currently, operations during all large-scale city emergencies are
directed from an eighth-floor room of police headquarters that is
lined with maps, television monitors and banks of phones for city
agencies. The Mayor said yesterday that there "were things lacking"
at the center.
While emergency management experts applauded the Mayor's attempt to
upgrade the city's disaster preparedness, they questioned the wisdom
of placing the command center on an upper floor of a building not
owned by the city, particularly one in traffic-congested lower
Manhattan. The center will be in a building jointly owned by
Silverstein Properties and the Port Authority of New York and New
Jersey, costing $1.4 million a year in rent for the 20-year life of
the lease.
"When you are talking about emergency management, I don't think you
want to be in an office building in the middle of Wall Street, where
you have to worry about your lease and the tenants above and below
you," said Edward Shaughnessy, a professor of sociology and law at
John Jay College of Criminal Justice and an expert in emergency
management.
"While it may provide you with the opportunity to survey the city,"
he said, putting the center on the 23d floor not only makes it hard
to reach should the power in the rest of the building be cut, but
also "leaves you open to a missile attack."
Professor Shaughnessy praised the work of Jerome M. Hauer, director
of the city's Office of Emergency Management, but he added, "I just
think the place they are choosing has the potential for too many
problems and they might need to re-examine it."
Hauer has said the site would be able to withstand hurricane force
winds. Administration officials also said it could survive some
bombs, would be impenetrable to gunfire and have a closed air
circulation system to prevent the influx of gas. Its
telecommunications equipment, they said, could operate even after a
nuclear blast.
Accommodations for at least 30 would include beds and showers, while
the Mayor would have a private area to hold meetings and a pull-out
couch to nap on. Generators and a water tank on separate floors
would insure that those inside could continue working for as much as
a week if the city went black.
But whatever its assets, the center was the butt of jokes on radio
talk shows and evening newscasts. One weatherman joked while
announcing a coming rainstorm, "Tomorrow, you'll wish you were in
the Mayor's bunker."
Earlier in the day on WABC-AM, the lawyer and talk-show host Ron
Kuby took a call from Hauer. As he questioned Hauer about who would
be allowed into the center, sound effects of King Kong and bomb
blasts echoed over the air. Kuby also sponsored a naming game,
allowing callers to offer their favorite moniker for the site. Among
the best, he said, was "Rudy's Nuclear Winter Palace."
Some Council members argued that if the center was such a good idea,
the Mayor might have been expected to publicize it.
Sheldon Leffler, chairman of the Council's Public Safety Committee,
said he still had reservations.
"Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and this project should be
subject to some public scrutiny so we can make the best decision,"
he said. "What the Mayor did was essentially try to slip this thing
through the budget in a subterfuge."
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
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June 18, 1998
Top of Page
NYC Plans Defense Against Biochemical Attack
By JUDITH MILLER and WILLIAM J. BROAD
NEW YORK -- This city, long viewed as one of the world's most
vulnerable places to terrorist attack, has quietly undertaken an
ambitious effort to foil strikes with deadly germs or chemicals,
according to city officials.
The city is building mobile emergency units, working out deals with
regional hospitals for emergency care, striking unusual accords with
drug companies to make medicines quickly in an emergency and taking
steps to stockpile medications, officials say.
The city's program is part of a federally supported effort to
enhance the nation's defenses against germ and chemical terrorism.
Last year, the federal government began training local officials to
deal with such attacks.
New York's program, which is two years old and has already spent
millions of federal and local dollars, is considered is the nation's
most advanced.
"Obviously, New York is the capital of the world and as such it's
always viewed as the city that faces the greatest threat," said
Jerome Hauer, director of the Mayor's Office of Emergency
Management. "While there is no known, immediate threat, we would be
irresponsible if we did not plan for one, even though the likelihood
of such an attack is small."
"The impact of a germ or chemical weapons attack would be
devastating," he said.
Nationally, the worries about germ and chemical attacks stem from
intelligence reports and incidents such as a religious cult's
assaults on Tokyo with nerve gas and germs.
Locally, the danger was dramatized in 1993 when a terrorist bomb
planted by Islamic militants exploded under the World Trade Center,
killing six people and injuring about 1,000.
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has been a driving force behind New York's
heightened preparations, city officials said. His planned $15
million crisis-control center, which has been the object of jokes
and ridicule, was described by these officials as a part of the
city's emerging defenses.
Two months ago, the city began to monitor patterns of emergency
hospitalization so it can more quickly know if an attack with
unconventional weapons is underway. The mayor, officials say, has
asked to be personally informed of any suspicious outbreaks.
And the city plans to have the ventilation system of the crisis
bunker near the World Trade Center adopt a defensive strategy known
as positive pressure, experts say. This precaution keeps a gentle
breeze blowing outward whenever a door or window is opened,
automatically keeping away dangerous germs or chemicals.
The federal government is sponsoring a series of meetings in which
officials from New York and other cities play out what would happen
if the city were attacked with biological weapons. From these
exercises, federal officials plan to glean lessons which are meant
to be applied nationwide.
Pentagon officials supervising the congressional program that last
year provided about $100 million to support the training of local
officials to cope with unconventional terrorist attacks said that
only about a third of the 120 cities that are supposed to receive
such training and equipment have received assistance so far.
Indianapolis, for one, among the first medium-sized cities to
receive training, still has not received any equipment to combat
germ or chemical threats, said Phillip Roberts, the deputy director
of Indiana's Emergency Management Agency.
And while Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, and Atlanta have set
aside state and local funds to bolster such preparedness, he added,
about half the states were so short of funds that they and their
cities had to rely totally on federal assistance to train "first
responders," the state and local police, firemen, doctors and
emergency planning officials who would be first on the scene.
"Jerry Hauer would laugh at the $150,000 that our office will
request in our next two-year budget," Roberts said. "There's no city
in the U.S. that's better prepared than New York."
In interviews, city officials said they are torn between taking
credit for defensive preparations and panicking the public with some
of doomsday scenarios that, in recent attack studies and
simulations, have easily overwhelmed the city's existing defenses.
Experts agree that skillful terrorists could injure or kill
thousands if not millions of people, but disagree on the likelihood
of successful attacks.
The city's defenses are being organized by Hauer's Office of
Emergency Management, which was created two years ago by the mayor.
Hauer is also a member of a small group of scientists and public
health officials who have been advising President Clinton on germ
warfare and civil defense.
City officials say New York has received numerous threats over the
years, which have turned out to be hoaxes. Among the most worrisome,
and one of the few discussed publicly, was the discovery in a
basement in Queens in March 1997 of a canister marked "sarin," a
lethal nerve gas. Though the substance turned out to be harmless,
the incident led Giuliani to intensify efforts to protect the city.
Until now, Hauer and other local officials have declined to be
specific about the city's preparations, some of the steps being
taken and their motivation were outlined Tuesday by a deputy,
William Nagle, at a conference in Washington on biological
preparedness that was sponsored by the Potomac Institute for Policy
Studies.
Nagle said the city had already negotiated memoranda of
understanding with several counties surrounding New York to give the
city access to their hospitals and medical gear in an emergency and
was close to an agreement with at least one drug company to provide
"surge" capacity for the city in antibiotics. A list of drugs that
may be stockpiled at the city's hospitals was now being drawn up.
Most important, Nagle told the 50 experts at the conference, is
"education, education, education."
He said since September, some 4000 members of the city's police and
fire units had undergone military schooling in how to deal with germ
and chemical attacks.
"Doctors and nurses are all trained to run in and help," Nagle,
deputy director of emergency planning, told the meeting. "If they do
that with a bio or chem incident, they're going to lose it."
Wednesday, Hauer said the city has also spent over $1 million to buy
12 mobile emergency trailers filled with containment vessels of
different sizes that can isolate dangerous germs or chemicals, as well
as equipment to respond to an attack.
Specifically, it has bought several hundred portable detectors to help
identify the exact nature of an infectious strike within as little as
10 minutes.
One type is as small as a matchbook; the other, known as an
immunoassay, is a boxy gadget that uses an antibody to detect the
presence of a dangerous germ. New York is the first city to acquire
the latter, Hauer said.
Among the least-known measures are plans to place the new command
center near the twin towers of the World Trade Center to positive
pressure, an idea being promoted by William Patrick, a leading germ
terrorism expert who helped run the nation's offensive germ program
before President Richard M. Nixon ended it.
"These people are very impressive," Patrick said of the city's
emergency response team in an interview. "They're quick learners,
take-charge kinds of people. They're first-rate."
The $15 million crisis center, city officials point out, is far less
elaborate and expensive than one already built in Tokyo, which cost an
estimated $190 million.
Decades ago, the military began to study the city's potential
vulnerability to unconventional strikes. Among other things, it tossed
light bulbs filled with harmless bacteria onto subways tracks as
trains entered stations to see if the microbes spread, which they did
-- widely.
The first attempt by New York and federal officials to play out a germ
attack demonstrated the city's vulnerability to terrorist attack,
officials disclosed.
On Wednesday, April 15, more than 50 scientists, government officials
and state and local emergency preparedness teams met in secret on the
outskirts of Washington, D.C.
They were confronted with a chilling scenario: More than 1,000 people
in a 15-story office building in midtown Manhattan were attacked by a
germ disseminated through the unfiltered air ducts.
According to the script, the spray contained tularemia, a highly
infectious germ that causes chills, fever, muscle aches, fatigue,
pneumonia-like symptoms and can be fatal. The germs spread quickly
throughout the building, whose windows were sealed, as they are in so
many modern buildings. Within 15 minutes, virtually the entire
building was infected.
By Friday, 80 people were ill. Some stayed home the next day; others
called their doctors. By Saturday, 450 more were sick; some showed up
at hospital emergency rooms. By Sunday another 550 were sick. Only
then did alarm spread through New York's medical community.
As the exercise unfolded, the experts discovered how unprepared they
are for such an event in New York City, despite the training of "first
responders," police, firemen, emergency medical teams, and others who
would initially be called upon to cope with a germ attack on New York.
In the war game, officials said, by the time doctors diagnosed the
mysterious illness as tularemia and began prescribing proper
antibiotics, the epidemic had run its course. Because the hypothetical
terrorist had chosen a germ that causes a disease with a 35 percent
mortality rate, only a third of the 1,080 people who fell ill died.
"The city's detectives were really good; so were the firemen. The
mayor's office was extremely impressive, very professional," said a
federal official who attended the meeting. "They were great at
controlling crowds and cordoning off areas; they did all the right
things. But still we got the maximum amount of lethality from the
maximum number of infections from the tularemia terrorist attack. The
scenario utterly defeated them."
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
_______________________________________________________________
June 19, 1998
Top of Page
New York City Developing Plans to Counter Chemical, Germ Attacks
By JUDITH MILLER and WILLIAM J. BROAD
NEW YORK -- Long viewed as one of the world's most attractive
targets for terrorists, New York City has quietly undertaken an
ambitious effort to counter attacks carried out with deadly
chemicals or germs, according to city officials.
The city is buying germ detectors, working out deals with regional
hospitals for emergency care, striking unusual accords with drug
companies to make medicines quickly in an emergency and taking steps
to stockpile medications, officials say.
Although no specific threat of a germ or chemical attack has been
detected recently, the city has undertaken an extensive training
program since September, instructing about 4,000 city police
officers and firefighters in how to handle such an emergency. Next
week, about 1,500 doctors and nurses in New York are to be trained
by outside medical experts.
Emergency planners face bewildering problems in preparing to deal
with germ attacks, the foremost being how to tell if sudden
outbreaks of illness are natural or purposeful. Malicious strikes
are hard to detect rapidly since deadly microbes might incubate in
human bodies for hours, days, weeks or even months before causing
widespread havoc.
Dealing with waves of sick or dying victims is a planner's
nightmare, as is cleaning up contaminated areas and buildings. The
spores of anthrax, one of the most common biological warfare agents,
can live for centuries.
Two months ago, city officials began monitoring patterns of
emergency hospitalization so that they can more swiftly determine if
unconventional weapons are used to attack New York. Mayor Rudolph
Giuliani, officials say, has asked to be personally informed of any
suspicious patterns of illness.
Experts agree that skillful terrorists in theory could injure or
kill thousands, if not millions, of people, but disagree on the
exact dimensions of the threat. Too little is known of that shadowy
underworld, they say.
Federal and local officials have become increasingly worried in
recent years about the possibility of germ and chemical attacks.
Nationally, the worries stem from American intelligence reports
about terrorists planning attacks and such incidents as a religious
cult's assaults on Tokyo with nerve gas and germs.
Locally, the danger from terrorists was driven home in 1993, when a
terrorist bomb planted by Islamic militants exploded under the World
Trade Center, killing six people and injuring 1,000.
Congress has provided about $100 million to support the training of
local officials nationwide to cope with unconventional terrorist
attacks. But the Pentagon said only 27 of the 120 cities in that
program had received assistance so far. And many have yet to receive
equipment.
Although New York has the most elaborate program, Washington, as the
nation's capital, has received special attention along with other
cities, including Los Angeles, Atlanta and Denver.
In interviews, New York City officials said they were torn between
reassuring the public by revealing the defensive preparations and
panicking people with doomsday scenarios that, in recent attack
studies and simulations, have easily overwhelmed the city's existing
defenses.
A sizable part of the $17 million that New York has devoted to
emergency preparations has been spent on dealing with unconventional
threats from terrorists. Five of the 50 people in the city's Office
of Emergency Management work full time on the problem, officials
said.
New York's program, which is two years old, is considered the
nation's most advanced.
"It's seen as the model," said Dr. Brad Roberts, a germ expert at
the Institute for Defense Analyses, a private group in Alexandria,
Va.
Roberts added that it was impossible to know if New York City was
overreacting to the potential threat. "There is no concrete answer
to how bad this problem is," he said. "But we can see the risks of
mass-casualty terrorism are rising. That means it's important to do
something."
City officials said Giuliani has been a driving force behind New
York's heightened preparations. The officials said the city's
planned $15 million crisis control center was described by these
officials as a part of the city's emerging defenses.
The city plans to have the ventilation system of the crisis
management center near the World Trade Center adopt a defensive
strategy known as positive pressure, experts say. This precaution
keeps a gentle breeze blowing outward whenever a door or window is
opened, automatically helping to keep out dangerous germs or
chemicals.
"Obviously, New York is the capital of the world and as such, it's
always viewed as the city that faces the greatest threat," said
Jerome Hauer, director of the Mayor's Office of Emergency
Management. "While there is no known immediate threat, we would be
irresponsible if we did not plan for one, even though the likelihood
of such an attack is small."
The city's defenses are being organized by the Office of Emergency
Management. Hauer is also a member of a small group of scientists
and public health officials who have been advising President Clinton
on germ warfare and civil defense.
Until now, Hauer and other local officials have declined to be
specific about the city's preparations. Some of the steps being
taken and their motivation were outlined Tuesday by William Nagle, a
deputy director of the Office of Emergency Planning, at a conference
in Washington, which was sponsored by the Potomac Institute for
Policy Studies.
Nagle said the city had already negotiated memorandums of
understanding with several surrounding counties to give the city
access to their hospitals and medical gear in an emergency and was
close to an agreement with at least one drug company to provide
"surge" capacity for the city in antidotes. A list of drugs that may
be stockpiled at the city's hospitals was being drawn up.
Most important, Nagle told the 50 experts at the conference, is
"education, education, education."
The 4,000 members of the city's police and fire units who have
undergone military instruction of a day or more in how to deal with
germ and chemical attacks, he said, have been taught to fight their
instincts in such an emergency.
"Docs and nurses are all trained to run in and help," Nagle told the
meeting. "If they do that with a bio or chem incident, they're going
to lose it."
Hauer, the office's director, said the city had spent more than $1
million to buy two mobile emergency trailers filled with containment
vessels of different sizes that can isolate dangerous germs or
chemicals, as well as equipment to respond to an attack.
It has bought several hundred portable detectors to help identify
the exact nature of an infectious strike within as little as 10
minutes. One type is as small as a matchbook; the other, known as an
immunoassay, is a boxy gadget that uses an antibody to detect the
presence of a dangerous germ. New York is the first city to acquire
the latter, Hauer said.
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
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