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WTC emergency drill evokes memories of Sept. 11
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-05-18 09:29

WTC emergency drill evokes memories of Sept. 11
A man acting as a victim of an explosion waits to be evacuated from an underground train station during a drill in New York May 17, 2009. [Agencies]

"Smoke filled the tunnel, and we had some 700 to 800 passengers on this train," said Joseph Bruno, New York City's commissioner of emergency management.

PATH service was suspended during the exercise, and streets around the trade center site were blocked off.

Participating agencies included New York City's police and fire departments and its Office of Emergency Management and Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, as well as the police department of the Port Authority, which operates the PATH trains.

"The main thing we're trying to evaluate is the ability of all these agencies to work together," Bruno said.

Poor communication and jurisdictional infighting between the police and fire departments impeded rescue efforts when the twin towers were struck in 2001, and Bruno said he was confident that the departments are better at working together now.

"I think we are at a totally different place than we were at the time of that incident, and that's good," he said.

Firefighters went into the PATH tunnel to extinguish fires caused by the drill's explosions and to rescue passengers. There were 10 fake fatalities. Most of the injured passengers were able to walk out of the station, but about 20 were carried out on red stretchers.

Chief Joseph Pfeifer, head of counterterrorism for the Fire Department of New York, said firefighters used lightweight aluminum carts that fit onto train tracks to transport the most severely injured.

He said the carts were developed after the 2005 London bombings because "it's very labor intensive to carry someone out."