JERSEY ATTACKED; NEW YORKERS CHEER

Like most New Yorkers, I’d be just as happy to see New Jersey wiped off of the map.
But I sup­pose, on the off chance that bio-​​agents unleashed by ter­ror­ists might some­how be able to make it past the Holland Tunnel, that it’s a good idea for the Department of Homeland Security to run a 10,000-person drill for first respon­ders in the Garden State (and in Connecticut, too).
“According to the script” set for TOPOFF 3, DHS’ bi-​​annual exer­cise for cop­ing with uncon­ven­tional strikes, “ter­ror­ists plan­ning to attack New York and Boston sus­pect their plans have been com­pro­mised and launch a pre­ma­ture attack by dis­pers­ing a bio­log­i­cal agent from a car in New Jersey,” the AP reports. (Because who plans on going to Jersey?)
“As seri­ously injured peo­ple begin to flood local hos­pi­tals, the chem­i­cal attack that had been planned for Boston also is launched pre­ma­turely — in the town of New London, Connecticut, some 250 kilo­me­ters away.“
Which sucks, because New London has some really great fish and chips.
Anyway, there have hope­fully been a few lessons learned since 2003’s TOPOFF 2, which sim­u­lated bio­log­i­cal and “dirty bomb” strikes in Chicago and Seattle. In the Windy City, local offi­cials lacked an “effi­cient emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions infra­struc­ture” to deal the bio-​​attack, accord­ing to an a sum­mary of the drill after­wards. Seattle had “crit­i­cal” prob­lems in try­ing to deter­mine where radi­o­log­i­cal plumes had spread.
Better luck this time, fel­las. I guess.

April 4th, 2005 | Homeland Security | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.