Conclusiones a partir de los resultados obtenidos

The international profile of New York City, together with the very magnitude of the NYC Transit system and its inherent vulnerability, makes it an ideal choice for a terrorist. Political motivations lay behind one series of terrorist acts that were planned but never accomplished. On June 24, 1993, a team of

FBI agents and NYC Police raided a garage in Queens and arrested five persons who were in the act of mixing chemicals for a bomb. An additional ten arrests were carried out during the course of the next few months in connection with a plot to bomb the United Nations headquarters, the main federal office building in New York City, and the Lincoln and Holland tunnels. All of these incidents were connected with Islamic extremists.

In addition to the terrorist threat, the actions of deranged individuals also present a risk. In December 1993, Colin Ferguson began firing randomly at passengers travelling from New York on a crowded Long Island Rail Road train during rush hour. Ferguson, who was finally overpowered by passengers while reloading, killed six passengers and wounded 17 others. In December of 1994, Edward Leary detonated two gasoline bombs on subway trains. The first was on December 15, at 145th Street and Lennox Avenue in upper Manhattan, injuring three people. In the second incident, on December 21 at Fulton Street and Broadway, the device exploded prematurely and 48 people, including Leary, were injured. He was then apprehended.

In November 1995, three criminals attempted to rob a subway token booth at Kingston and Throop Avenues in Brooklyn. In an attempt to intimidate the token booth clerk, they sprayed a flammable liquid through the change aperture of the Halon system-equipped booth. The clerk was badly burned and died from his injuries several days later. Media coverage of this incident resulted in a number of copycat attacks and threats.

In general, threats to the New York City Transit system can be categorized as follows:

• terrorism by either conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction

• accidental disasters such as derailments

• natural disasters like hurricanes, floods, and winter storms causing power outages

Security Organization and Personnel

The size of New York City precludes the transit authorities from developing anti-terrorist policies and procedures in a vacuum. NYC Transit works closely with the city’s emergency services such as the New York Fire Department (NYFD), the New York City Police (NYPD), the International Red Cross, and the Salvation Army’s Emergency Services. Managing the overall coordination of the city’s emergency services is the Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM). The common goal of these services is to be prepared for, and able to coordinate, rapid and effective responses to a wide range of emergency situations.

The Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM)

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, by Executive Order, established the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) with responsibility for interagency and intergovernmental coordination of NYC’s responses to emergencies. This job includes the development of all emergency plans, training, preparation, and response to all emergencies. The OEM is directly responsible for the coordination of all emergency services but does not govern their operational activities. The OEM was born out of the need for clear lines of command and control when responsibility and accountability can become blurred as a result of the dynamics of a complicated and urgent situation. For example, if an explosion occurs on a railway track and the NYFD is the first emergency service to respond, it will take the operational lead. However, should a suspicious object be found to have caused the blast, the NYPD will assume control of the situation until it is satisfied that no crime has been committed or until their investigations have been completed. Once the NYPD has declared the area safe, the control may switch back to the NYFD or the NYC Transit as circumstances dictate.

Security Plans

NYC Transit actively participates in the planning, training, and response to any emergency. To aid in combating terrorism, a task force was created to develop a Chemical/Biological Incident Contingency Plan.

Chemical/Biological Incident Contingency Plan

In 1996, the OEM established a committee to develop a Chemical/Biological Incident Contingency Plan. The Sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway system and a no-notice test of New York’s response to terrorist use of nerve gas in the subway system prompted officials to accelerate the contingency planning process. A review of the no-notice test identified four key areas of concern: communications, training, logistics, and, planning. In addition, five areas of special attention were identified:

• coordination with the FBI

• being prepared for mass casualties

• treating incident as a crime scene

• need for speedy response actions to save lives

The committee established four focus groups, all with mass transit representation, to prepare contingency plans. The four groups are:

• law enforcement

• hazardous materials

• communications

• medical

The Law Enforcement Focus Group includes representatives from Federal,

state, city, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), the parent company of MTA NYC Transit,MTA Long Island Rail Road, MTA Metro- North Railroad, MTA Bridges and Tunnels, and neighboring state transportation authorities. They are divided between criminal justice agencies and mass transit agencies, as shown below.

Criminal Justice Agencies Mass Transit Agencies New York Police Department (NYPD) MTA NYC Transit

FBI MTA Long Island Rail Road

US Secret Service MTA Metro North Rail Road

US Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) MTA Bridges and Tunnels

US Coast Guard NY/NJ Port Authority

New Jersey Transit Amtrak

Con Rail

The Law Enforcement Focus Group developed plans and policies for interagency protocols to identify the “incident commander” and for:

• site security

• traffic control

• crime scene preservation and integrity

• identifying additional active devices

• first responder awareness

The last item, first responder awareness, is a critical training issue due to the possible lack of previous experience.

The Hazard Materials Focus Group includes representatives from the Federal, State, MTA, and neighboring state transportation authorities, and includes first responder agencies and mass transit agencies.

First Responder Agencies Mass Transit Agencies

NYPD MTA NYC Transit

New York Fire Department (FDNY), includes Emergency Medical Services

MTA Long Island Rail Road New York Department of Environmental

Protection (NYDEP)

MTA Metro North Rail Road

US ATF MTA Bridges and Tunnels

US Coast Guard NY/NJ Port Authority

US FEMA New Jersey Transit

Amtrak Con Rail

The Hazard Materials Focus Group made recommendations on to the following issues:

• hazard identification process

• the establishment of hazardous material incident management procedures and protocols

• the use of detection equipment and training

• and, first responder awareness protocols

The Communications Focus Group includes these representatives:

First Responder Agencies Mass Transit Agencies

NYPD MTA NYC Transit

FDNY – EMS MTA Long Island Rail Road

NY OEM MTA Metro North Rail Road

NY Department of Information Tech- nology and Telecommunications (DoITT)

MTA Bridges and Tunnels NY/NJ Port Authority New Jersey Transit Amtrak

The Communications Focus Group concentrates on implementing the best practices regarding:

• initial emergency incident notification

• on scene interagency communications and joint interagency entry team communications systems

• command and control communications; and

• media and public information issues

The Medical Focus Group includes representatives from:

First Responder Agencies Mass Transit Agencies

NYPD MTA NYC Transit

FDNY – EMS MTA Long Island Rail Road

NY OEM MTA Metro North Rail Road

NY DEP MTA Bridges and Tunnels

NY Department of Health NY/NJ Port Authority

NY Health and Hospitals Corporation New Jersey Transit NY Office of Chief Medical Examiner

Greater NY Hospitals Association American Red Cross

The Medical Focus Group has identified a triage and treatment strategy that includes the utilization of casuality collection points to minimize risks of cross contamination of hospitals and medical facilities. Consideration has been given to critical issues such as symptom recognition and antidote selection, the availability and delivery of medical materiel, and first responder awareness and training.

Security Technology

The New York City Transit has recently developed a Computer Assisted Design (CAD) Fire and Safety System. The system is a computerized database capable of depicting the rail track network with corresponding street grid, emergency exits, access points, and ventilation fans in selected sectors of the rail track system. The operations control center monitors the movement of all trains and maintains constant communication with train operators and line dispatch officers. An emergency mobile command center equipped with a duplicate CAD system as well as other communications facilities is dispatched to the scene of all major emergencies.

Environmental Design and Construction Features

The NYC Transit suffers from a disadvantage due to the sheer size of the system because its 468 stations were constructed over a span of 120 years. Security was not previously a major consideration in design and construction and the cost of system-wide remedial construction would be enormous.

Communications

Radio communications are in some instances limited. Each train operator and train supervisor is in radio contact with the command center by radio but the radios are not always powerful enough to penetrate the physical structures. To supplement the radio network, land-lines have been established at regular intervals along the tracks. To improve police and other emergency communications in the subway, NYC Transit is completing the design of a 130 million dollar radio system.

Training

In anticipation of major emergencies, NYC Transit conducts regular emergency response and rescue exercises. These vary from desktop simulations to organized, planned drills to “no-notice” simulations. The primary objective of these exercises is to identify deficiencies in the emergency plans and coordination and communication problems.

Contingency Planning and Emergency Response

The evaluation process of terrorist contingency plans is an ongoing activity. In conjunction with the Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management, NYC Transit constantly evaluates its emergency management principles, plans, and procedures.

NYC Transit is active in the development and implementation of its emergency contingency plans and procedures. For example, following the Sarin gas attack in Japan, the NYPD and the NYC government formed a task force to review security issues on New York City mass transit systems. The objective of this task force was to develop their response capabilities and to reduce the vulnerability of the system. The committee made five pertinent recommendations, the details of which are confidential, but information and guidance about gas attacks have been distributed to relevant employees and ventilation procedures for cars and stations were reviewed. These initiatives have been supplemented by contingency planning and regular inter-agency simulations and training exercises that focus on responding to chemical or biological incidents.

On November 8, 9, and 10, 1997, NYC OEM coordinated the largest series of terrorism response drills ever conducted by the city. Officials emphasized to the public that the exercise was not prompted by the possibility of an attack but toward reducing the potential danger of a terrorist chemical incident. The drills included testing the reactions of emergency responders in 41 city hospitals; 600 city, state, and federal law enforcement officers and emergency workers, limiting damage from a hypothetical chemical attack in a two-block area, and a tabletop exercise reviewing infrastructure issues.