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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
People acting as victims of an underground train explosion, wait to be evacuated on a wheeled platform during a drill in New York May 17, 2009. [Agencies]

Other drills staged since the 2001 terror attacks in New York City have included a simulated response to a hazardous chemical spill and an explosion on an Amtrak train at Penn Station.

"If we're going to make mistakes we want to make them here, we want to learn from them, we want to build them into our plans, so when there is a real situation we respond appropriately and all the kinks in the system have been worked out," said Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler.

Richard Falkenrath, the police department's deputy commissioner for counterterrorism, added, "It's an important thing to be doing, and we will learn a lot of lessons from it I have no doubt."

Officials bought television ads and plastered train stations with posters to warn downtown Manhattan residents of the drill. The warnings for those in the area came after a Department of Defense-arranged flyover by a jet above downtown Manhattan last month panicked thousands of Wall Street workers and residents.

Bruno said the flyover "pointed out the need for people to know as much as possible."

"We would not want folks to wake up here and see all this equipment and wonder," he said.