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Just below my home on Manhattan's Upper West Side is an 89 year-old monument to dead firefighters. Once every year, New York's Bravest turn out with bagpipes to honor their dead. I never thought I'd be one of those people placing flowers at sites honroing folks I don't know, but the monument's fountain is now full of flower bouquets, with candles lining the facade, and a women is playing mournful, funeral music on a strange instrument as passersby leave flowers, and sit silently, or cry, as I've been doing.
Meanwhile, the roving cloud of toxic fumes from the vanished WTC has made it's way to the neighborhood. Tenants prowl in search of nonexistent elctrical fires. My doorman has finally followed my urgings to don a mask, as the fumes are said by the authorities to be quite harmful. All of Manhattan is under this cloud, though few seem to understand what it means, where it comes from, how it threatens us. The cashiers at the emptying supermarket (no deliveries in days) complain of their headaches....
More buildings are collapsing. A friend without ID is afraid to leave the East Village out of fear the cops won't let him return to his home.
Now for Giuliani. Unable to obtain a NY Times today, I found the following on the internet. It's a polite story, but read it for the truth about his "Bunker." And know, as you read it, that the firefighters and cops who died did not receive a fair wage increase under his adminstration because he colluded with corrupt civilian employee union leaders to rig elections so that they could be reelected and then agree to union contracts that were so low that the parallel unions representing the police and firefighters (and sanitation workers) were forced by court actions to accept extremely low wage increases. He cheated the men and women who died yesterday.
Now for the "bunker," as covered in Wednesday's New york Times and in Newsday:
September 12, 2001
THE GOVERNMENT
Trying to Command an Emergency When the Emergency Command Center Is Gone
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
Within the very target picked by the attackers, the World Trade Center, was New York City's two-year- old Emergency Command Center, which was supposed to act as the nerve center in any calamity. Instead, it was rendered useless within minutes, and hours later lay buried in a funeral mound of rubble.
Last night, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani ordered the city shut down south of 14th Street, and urged residents to stay home.
Despite all the planning that occurred after the World Trade Center bombing of 1993, emergency and city officials said yesterday that none of the scenarios played out had envisioned such disaster upon disaster, with the potential to kill all those responding.
With telephone lines and cellular service overloaded — the Trade Center towers themselves were a major link in the city's cellular transmission service — city and state officials were left groping in the first hours for any way to gather and communicate information. Mr. Giuliani and a phalanx of other city officials were forced to flee a makeshift command post and walk miles through billowing dust looking for a place to work.
Crucial buildings a short walk from the Trade Center — like City Hall, where dust and ash an inch thick coated the steps and swirled into the deserted rotunda, and the Police Department headquarters at One Police Plaza — were evacuated, making official communication all the more difficult. Transit officials shut down the entire subway system for several hours.
Initially, city officials set up shop in the Emergency Command Center on the 23rd floor of 7 World Trade Center, a stone's throw from the twin towers, but officials concluded that the building should be evacuated.
All of the city's 40,000 police officers and 11,000 firefighters were put on what amounts to round-the-clock duty. Mr. Giuliani estimated that 2,000 emergency workers were deployed at the Trade Center, looking for survivors.
About 2,000 injured people were ferried to Liberty State Park, across the harbor in New Jersey. The mayor said that by midafternoon, 600 of the more seriously hurt had been taken to hospitals, 150 in critical condition.
The city medical examiner's office was working to set up temporary mortuaries to take what is expected to be a large number of bodies. Hospitals were told to expect thousands of casualties. The city was also establishing morgue space at some of the piers, officials said.
When the airliners struck, Gov. George E. Pataki was en route from his home in Garrison to visit a sick girl at Columbia-Presbyterian Center in Washington Heights. He headed instead to his office near Grand Central Terminal. Until five years ago, the governor's New York City office was on the 57th floor of 2 World Trade Center.
The governor activated the National Guard. By nightfall, 750 troops were in the city to assist the police, and he said that by today, 3,000 would be deployed in or near the city, along with hundreds of state police troopers.
City and state officials contacted the White House, asking that military aircraft secure the city's airspace to guard against further attacks, and by late morning, fighter jets were roaring across the sky. By midafternoon, Navy ships had steamed into New York Harbor.
In Albany, the state activated its Emergency Operations Center in a blast-hardened bunker to coordinate responses among myriad agencies, but officials acknowledged that most of their information was coming from television screens on one wall.
In New Jersey, Acting Governor Donald T. DiFrancesco activated the National Guard, which set up staging areas to ferry emergency supplies and equipment into the city. The New Jersey Turnpike was closed to northbound traffic, toward the city, north of Exit 11.
Mr. Giuliani was at 50th Street and Fifth Avenue when word of the jet crashes came, and he rushed at first to the command office at the Trade Center. He and several other top officials walked a few blocks to 75 Barclay Street, at West Broadway, hoping to work from city offices there.
Then came the collapse of the south tower, making clear that the neighborhood was unsafe.
The entourage debated several options before going to the fire station at Houston Street and Avenue of the Americas. But the station was locked and empty; its usual occupants, Engine Company 24 and Ladder Company 5, had gone to the Trade Center. The officials tried to break the combination lock on the door, but then one member of the group was able to get the combination over his radio. Finally, the mayor had a place from which he could work, and he spent a few hours there before moving to a more permanent headquarters that city officials asked reporters not to identify
Now here's the article from NEWSDAY:
Mayor's Emergency Center Falls
By Pete Bowles
STAFF WRITER
September 12, 2001
The Mayor's Emergency Operations Center was among the scores of offices destroyed in yesterday's explosion, further crippling already chaotic rescue efforts as authorities were initially left with no central command post.
Dubbed "Rudy's Bunker" by his critics, the Mayor's Emergency Operations Center was designed to withstand everything from hurricane winds to rocket attacks.
"For threats that we will confront over the next 50 years, this facility is as secure as it needs to be," Jerome Hauer, then director of the Mayor's Office of Emergency Management, said at the unveiling of the high-tech command and control center on June 7, 1999.
But the bunker on the 23rd floor of 7 World Trade Center came crashing to the ground yesterday along with most of the World Trade Center complex.
Building 7, just north of the north tower, was struck by flaming debris after the plane crashes. While it stood for several hours, by 4:30 p.m., it was burning and near collapse, with orange flames shooting from floors seven through 10. It fell around 5:30 p.m.
The center - a gigantic room filled with an array of telecommunications and security systems - occupied about two-fifths of a 50,000-square-foot area renovated at a cost of at least $13 million. The facility, used by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and his aides during snow and rain storms and other emergencies, could handle 230 people during a major crisis.
Normally, it was staffed 24 hours a day with three people.
The center was accessible by a special freight elevator with its own power supply. Under low lighting, it featured rows of computer consoles tied into weather, communications and emergency systems. On the walls were television monitors and projection screens.
The mayor had a separate office with a receptionist's desk. The center also was equipped with eight beds, bathrooms with showers and a kitchenette.
At the opening, Hauer admitted that the command bunker might not be impervious to everything, but that it was strong enough.
Col. Robert Fitton, a visiting official from the U.S. Department of Defense, described the center as "state of the art" and added: "It's one of the better ones I've seen."
Also destroyed in the disaster was the headquarters of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which occupied six floors of the north tower, known as One World Trade Center. The Port Authority manages and operates all transportation terminals, including the three major airports, and bridges and tunnels in the metropolitan area.
Meanwhile, the roving cloud of toxic fumes from the vanished WTC has made it's way to the neighborhood. Tenants prowl in search of nonexistent elctrical fires. My doorman has finally followed my urgings to don a mask, as the fumes are said by the authorities to be quite harmful. All of Manhattan is under this cloud, though few seem to understand what it means, where it comes from, how it threatens us. The cashiers at the emptying supermarket (no deliveries in days) complain of their headaches....
More buildings are collapsing. A friend without ID is afraid to leave the East Village out of fear the cops won't let him return to his home.
Now for Giuliani. Unable to obtain a NY Times today, I found the following on the internet. It's a polite story, but read it for the truth about his "Bunker." And know, as you read it, that the firefighters and cops who died did not receive a fair wage increase under his adminstration because he colluded with corrupt civilian employee union leaders to rig elections so that they could be reelected and then agree to union contracts that were so low that the parallel unions representing the police and firefighters (and sanitation workers) were forced by court actions to accept extremely low wage increases. He cheated the men and women who died yesterday.
Now for the "bunker," as covered in Wednesday's New york Times and in Newsday:
September 12, 2001
THE GOVERNMENT
Trying to Command an Emergency When the Emergency Command Center Is Gone
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
Within the very target picked by the attackers, the World Trade Center, was New York City's two-year- old Emergency Command Center, which was supposed to act as the nerve center in any calamity. Instead, it was rendered useless within minutes, and hours later lay buried in a funeral mound of rubble.
Last night, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani ordered the city shut down south of 14th Street, and urged residents to stay home.
Despite all the planning that occurred after the World Trade Center bombing of 1993, emergency and city officials said yesterday that none of the scenarios played out had envisioned such disaster upon disaster, with the potential to kill all those responding.
With telephone lines and cellular service overloaded — the Trade Center towers themselves were a major link in the city's cellular transmission service — city and state officials were left groping in the first hours for any way to gather and communicate information. Mr. Giuliani and a phalanx of other city officials were forced to flee a makeshift command post and walk miles through billowing dust looking for a place to work.
Crucial buildings a short walk from the Trade Center — like City Hall, where dust and ash an inch thick coated the steps and swirled into the deserted rotunda, and the Police Department headquarters at One Police Plaza — were evacuated, making official communication all the more difficult. Transit officials shut down the entire subway system for several hours.
Initially, city officials set up shop in the Emergency Command Center on the 23rd floor of 7 World Trade Center, a stone's throw from the twin towers, but officials concluded that the building should be evacuated.
All of the city's 40,000 police officers and 11,000 firefighters were put on what amounts to round-the-clock duty. Mr. Giuliani estimated that 2,000 emergency workers were deployed at the Trade Center, looking for survivors.
About 2,000 injured people were ferried to Liberty State Park, across the harbor in New Jersey. The mayor said that by midafternoon, 600 of the more seriously hurt had been taken to hospitals, 150 in critical condition.
The city medical examiner's office was working to set up temporary mortuaries to take what is expected to be a large number of bodies. Hospitals were told to expect thousands of casualties. The city was also establishing morgue space at some of the piers, officials said.
When the airliners struck, Gov. George E. Pataki was en route from his home in Garrison to visit a sick girl at Columbia-Presbyterian Center in Washington Heights. He headed instead to his office near Grand Central Terminal. Until five years ago, the governor's New York City office was on the 57th floor of 2 World Trade Center.
The governor activated the National Guard. By nightfall, 750 troops were in the city to assist the police, and he said that by today, 3,000 would be deployed in or near the city, along with hundreds of state police troopers.
City and state officials contacted the White House, asking that military aircraft secure the city's airspace to guard against further attacks, and by late morning, fighter jets were roaring across the sky. By midafternoon, Navy ships had steamed into New York Harbor.
In Albany, the state activated its Emergency Operations Center in a blast-hardened bunker to coordinate responses among myriad agencies, but officials acknowledged that most of their information was coming from television screens on one wall.
In New Jersey, Acting Governor Donald T. DiFrancesco activated the National Guard, which set up staging areas to ferry emergency supplies and equipment into the city. The New Jersey Turnpike was closed to northbound traffic, toward the city, north of Exit 11.
Mr. Giuliani was at 50th Street and Fifth Avenue when word of the jet crashes came, and he rushed at first to the command office at the Trade Center. He and several other top officials walked a few blocks to 75 Barclay Street, at West Broadway, hoping to work from city offices there.
Then came the collapse of the south tower, making clear that the neighborhood was unsafe.
The entourage debated several options before going to the fire station at Houston Street and Avenue of the Americas. But the station was locked and empty; its usual occupants, Engine Company 24 and Ladder Company 5, had gone to the Trade Center. The officials tried to break the combination lock on the door, but then one member of the group was able to get the combination over his radio. Finally, the mayor had a place from which he could work, and he spent a few hours there before moving to a more permanent headquarters that city officials asked reporters not to identify
Now here's the article from NEWSDAY:
Mayor's Emergency Center Falls
By Pete Bowles
STAFF WRITER
September 12, 2001
The Mayor's Emergency Operations Center was among the scores of offices destroyed in yesterday's explosion, further crippling already chaotic rescue efforts as authorities were initially left with no central command post.
Dubbed "Rudy's Bunker" by his critics, the Mayor's Emergency Operations Center was designed to withstand everything from hurricane winds to rocket attacks.
"For threats that we will confront over the next 50 years, this facility is as secure as it needs to be," Jerome Hauer, then director of the Mayor's Office of Emergency Management, said at the unveiling of the high-tech command and control center on June 7, 1999.
But the bunker on the 23rd floor of 7 World Trade Center came crashing to the ground yesterday along with most of the World Trade Center complex.
Building 7, just north of the north tower, was struck by flaming debris after the plane crashes. While it stood for several hours, by 4:30 p.m., it was burning and near collapse, with orange flames shooting from floors seven through 10. It fell around 5:30 p.m.
The center - a gigantic room filled with an array of telecommunications and security systems - occupied about two-fifths of a 50,000-square-foot area renovated at a cost of at least $13 million. The facility, used by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and his aides during snow and rain storms and other emergencies, could handle 230 people during a major crisis.
Normally, it was staffed 24 hours a day with three people.
The center was accessible by a special freight elevator with its own power supply. Under low lighting, it featured rows of computer consoles tied into weather, communications and emergency systems. On the walls were television monitors and projection screens.
The mayor had a separate office with a receptionist's desk. The center also was equipped with eight beds, bathrooms with showers and a kitchenette.
At the opening, Hauer admitted that the command bunker might not be impervious to everything, but that it was strong enough.
Col. Robert Fitton, a visiting official from the U.S. Department of Defense, described the center as "state of the art" and added: "It's one of the better ones I've seen."
Also destroyed in the disaster was the headquarters of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which occupied six floors of the north tower, known as One World Trade Center. The Port Authority manages and operates all transportation terminals, including the three major airports, and bridges and tunnels in the metropolitan area.
