Case Study New York Subway Disaster Drill Preps Emergency Workers for Possible Future Terror Attacks

As part of an ongoing, post-9/11 effort by New York City officials to improve emergency response readiness among the city's fire, police and emergency responders, News Broadcast Network (NBN) was tapped to capture on video a simulated subway incident in lower Manhattan.

The mock disaster drill, dubbed Operation Transit Safe, took place in and around the Bowling Green station early on the morning of May 16, 2004. NBN was at the ready with six strategically placed cameras and three production trucks to record the actions of roughly 1,000 police, fire and EMS workers descending on two parked subway trains filled with 300 actor/victims. To accomplish this, NBN's cameras were positioned at multiple locations on the subway station platform, at the subway entrance above ground, at the Incident Command Center and at the VIP tent, where New York City Mayor Bloomberg and other city officials watched the action.

NBN's Director of Operations Richard Neuman coordinated the shoot, trucks and crew, and also managed the challenging technical aspects of the day's event. NBN provided live pictures of the event as they unfolded over a four-hour period. The footage was also used by the New York City Office of Emergency Management to analyze the performance of the city's emergency responders. This latest in a series of training exercises came at a particularly sensitive time, as city officials attempted to enhance inter-agency coordination in light of the upcoming Republican convention in the summer of 2004.

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