helicopper

I couldn't agree more. The airport should be arguably one of the best prepared facilities in the County by virtue of the number of exercises and ongoing, regular meetings conducted there but we keep seeing the same problems year in and year out. A large scale EMS response is (IMHO) one of the biggest weaknesses in this county. This is not bashing or criticism but rather the recognition of something that should be fixed. So I'll ask this: what are we doing to fix it?

Sadly it appears that an MTA police officer on scene didn't recognize the plainclothes officer entering the house carrying a rifle and shot him fatally. Details are still sketchy but that's one report as of this afternoon.RIP brother.

Read the full story at BDTonline.com.

One of the problems, and I think bnechis can address this in more detail, is that nobody wanted to join pre-designated task forces so the expectation is that they'll be developed by 60-Control on the fly. It should be as simple as hitting a button to tone out a task force but that isn't the way it works. If an agency is busy, their spot in the task force could be back-filled. We have been very fortunate to have no need for such large EMS responses but with the increased number of high-rises, commercial airline flights, and the ever-present buses and trains moving through the county this is something that should be addressed.

Your point is noted but nobody is being disrespectful or criticizing any specific agency. Discussing incident operations and mobilization of resources is a very valid topic and is consistent with other threads of a similiar nature. If you would like to discuss the extrication issues associated with the bus construction feel free, that's what this thread is for. Thank you.

There are plans for Indian Point and they are regularly updated and "exercised". Each of the four counties (Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, and Orange) that would be immediately affected by IP are involved as is New York State, the NRC, FEMA, and others. There definitely aren't cobwebs on the filing cabinet as the plans are almost continually being reviewed and updated.

Having plans and being able to implement them effectively are two totally different things. How many local communities have current Comprehensive Emergency Management Plans (CEMP)? How many communities routinely exercise them with realistic scenarios for their community? How many CEMP's have different communities using the same resources for response? Hmmm, how can 10 places use the same buses? Being able to mobilize large numbers of resources and effectively manage/utilize them are also two vastly different things. Sure, we can call for hundreds of resources but how many emergency managers, emergency services chiefs, etc. are well versed and practiced in the management of that many resources? What resources would be mobilized? How many? From where? To where? For what? Is it realistic for all that to be done in the 2 hours you use as your warning time? Too many unanswered questions and speculation. Sure, we can notify lots of people but what are going to tell them to do? The southeastern states all have coastal storm plans, most have evacuation routes, some even exercise them. What do we have in the northeast? Even with no formal warning/instructions, people will evacuate or relocate jamming the roads and creating even more problems. What's the plan for that? The military and federal government resources will take as Barry noted 72-96 hours to be operational on the ground. Sure, some advance assets may pop up here or there but the organized response of national assets is 3-4 days away, not six hours. The private sector? What agencies/resources in the private sector? Do we have agreements in place to use their resources? Who manages them? If the response isn't effective, what good is it? Here's a warning... the northeastern United States will be hit by a significant hurricane. This is the same warning that has been communicated to us almost every year for decades. We've had them, we know hurricane season is coming again and yet we still don't have effective plans to deal with them so IMHO we are not prepared. And hurricanes give us almost a week's notice to get the plan in motion. For years money has been pushed out of the Federal government to plan, prepare, etc. etc. and what do we have to show for it? As a nation are we truly better prepared? Have our capabilities improved? Is our capacity greater than it was? Do we really have the wherewithal to deal with some of the things we've been told to prepare for? Sadly I don't think we've gotten as much for our dollar as we should have.

You stated, "yes", we are prepared notwithstanding the likelihood of the specific event. I expanded the event types to include events much more likely on the east coast, hurricanes, storm surges, tropical storms, or nor'easters since a tsunami is highly UNlikely. I will restate my question again, do you really believe that the we (the northeast US) are prepared for one of the above phenomena?

I looked at the list of unions exempted and the majority seems to be private trades unions not public sector unions (although there are a few). So what is the big deal? They're being given three years to get in line with the legislation.

How about (just some random thoughts)... - evacuation plans? - staffing plans? - continuity of operations plans? - dealing with concerns about family members (where will the families of the responders be/how will they be taken care of)? - equipment/infrastructure failure? - communications failure? - multiple simultaneous responses? - multiple simultaneous large scale responses? - mass fatalities? - mass casualties? - unavailability of traditional mutual aid? ...to name a few. Is your agency prepared now to respond to a "super MCI"? If the answer's no, there's certainly room to plan!!!

In a sentence, "you completely missed the point of the original question". The question wasn't intended to start a geophysics or geology discussion (not that it hasn't been entertaining); it was about emergency preparedness. "Are we prepared" not "Is it likely"? So, I would like you elaborate on your "yes" we're prepared statement. In the very unlikely event that the east coast was hit by a tsunami or other comparable weather phenomenon (storm surge, hurricane, etc.), do you really think we're capable of handling that?

I'm just curious what you mean by a private sector union that doesn't make any money off "anyone's back". Public sector union members work hard, contribute to the economy, and most hope that their employers keep taxes under control because they're all also taxpayers. There's no overtime padding - there are statutory limits to how much overtime is pensionable from one year to the next. If there were more full-time employees there would be less overtime but nobody wants to hire anyone so they work short and pay overtime. How is that the union members' fault? What is a "huge percentage" of disability retirements? Are you insinuating that they're not legitimate or just that too many people receive them? What double-dipping? Public sector employees can be terminated. I fail to understand how a collective bargaining agreement stands in the way of legitimate termination. Your grievance may be with civil service - or laws written and passed by our elected officials - that govern public employee issues. That isn't contractual. Yes, we work for the taxpayers. What does that have to do with your argument?

We have people in our area who refuse to acknowledge that we can be hit by coastal storms (nor'easter, tropical storm, or hurricane) so their planning for those is inadequate. Do you think they're really going to plan for a tsunami? We'd have better luck getting them to plan for Godzilla or the blob.

Hundreds of deaths already reported, catastrophic damage and flooding in many areas. Media reports that Tokyo's earthquake resistant high-rises and hotels have sustained little structural damage but this is not the case elsewhere. Evacuations being ordered, including around one nuclear power plant near epicenter of quake. Search underway for boat carrying 100+/- passengers. Reports still coming in as this incident still developing. Live coverage on almost every network.

The federal share of education is 70B, what is the total expenditure on education in the US? How much do we pay in local taxes for national defense? ZERO! So the 700 billion is the total national expense. What is the total national expense for primary education? We DO fund our education system and it is still failing us. School districts have increased their budgets, in some cases dramatically, every year. What do we have to show for it? How much of that 70B in federal education spending actually makes it to the local classroom or to local students? We have to finance a federal "Department of Education" with staff, website, publications, reports, research, etc. How much of that makes a difference in our child's classroom. Are there problems with defense spending? Absolutely! Government procurement is so complicated that it takes 10x longer and costs at least 5x as much to field anything for the military as it does for the public. This is wasteful and can without a doubt be improved but your education/defense spending analysis is flawed because you ignore the local expenditures for schools.

I am willing to bet that most of the people in the community's you describe have absolutely no idea who the cops are so it isn't knowing them personally that appeals to them. It's the notion that they somehow can exert control over them because of the local politics. We're looking at different sides of the same coin. You seem to be advocating doing away with the County or Town levels of service while I'm advocating the reverse, do away with the smaller levels and regionalize. You can't just do away with a town PD and have a village cover it because the village has no authority outside its borders. Sure, special legislation could be passed but it is cleaner and simpler for the larger to absorb several smaller than the reverse. If we do away with County government we eliminate one entity but still have 42 local ones. If we consolidate local governments we could wind up with a county, 10-15 towns and 6 citiies - half the number of governments. The state has difficulty dealing with the 57 counties and NYC, how on earth could they deal with 1500 local jurisdictions? Does this mean we need a health department in every town/city/village? How about transportation, social services, motor vehicles, clerk, and all the other services that are often provided by the county on behalf of or in lieu of the state? You're right on the mark about schools and I support their consolidation as well but we'll never see that happen unless there's a revolution.

The four big cities (Yonkers, Mount Vernon, New Rochelle and White Plains) are all busy enough to stay on their own. While I certainly am an advocate of the County PD approach to regionalization, there are also other ways to achieve savings and streamline operations. All the villages within towns that have their own PD's could be absorbed into the Town PD, that would reduce the number of jobs by about a third. Greenburgh would become the second or third largest PD in the County if the six village PD's consolidated with them. Opt out? Jurisdictions have to opt in and seek out this type of inter-municipal agreement so the "more affluent" as you put it can choose to continue to pay absurdly high taxes if they want to while the smarter ones do what's best and reduce taxes. Many didn't think we'd see this one happen during our careers so it is quite likely that there will be more consolidation/regionalization in the next several years.

Precincts also have to take population into consideration; they're not strictly geographically based. Bigger geographical precinct, smaller population and vice versa.

Another reminder from the staff: DO NOT MAKE BLANKET STATEMENTS SMEARING ENTIRE DISCIPLINES OR PROFESSIONS. If you havea specific complaints about an agency or its personnel the proper forum to address them is with that department or your town's elected officials, not in an internet forum.

All their civil service time counts - in fact supervisors and detectives came over with their rank. The only exception was the Chief who came over as a Captain but I am not privvy to the dynamics behind that. All the Ossining guys are being field trained so they can perform any assignment within their new department but most are still assigned to the town. Once their field training is completed they'll be eligible for any assignment including overtime assignments. County cops are also being cross-trained so they're familar with the town. It's been a great deal so far (IMHO).

PLUS 1 !!! 40+ PSAP's, multiple frequencies, no coordination, no interoperability. All in the name of what? Home rule!

MODERATOR NOTE: When quoting a prior post, please use the "REPLY" button at the bottom of the post to be quoted so the original text shows up formatted as a quote in your post. Some members have been using parenthesis, quotes, italics, or nothing at all to highlight quoted text and that makes it difficult to follow. If you have any questions, please contact a moderator for assistance. Thank you.

I stand by my post. I said foreign aid was tens of billions of dollars and it is. I still think it should be reduced (not elminated).

How much US money is being sent overseas in foreign aid every year? BILLIONS. I'm not suggesting we eliminate it but if we reduced it by half and applied that toward programs that are sorely needed within our borders and to reduce the national debt. While I wholeheartedly support our country's support of developing nations, we must protect our own first and that simply isn't happening any more. The tax code should also be simplified so everyone pays their fair share including the poorest right up to the richest corporations. Tax breaks for special interests are out of control. Consolidation of duplicate or redundant government agencies needs to become a law. There's a federal and state Education Department but there're also local school districts. Why all three? Why are there so many independent school districts? Almost every one has a superintendent making around 200,000 per year. Why? America's not broke but the government thinks it can just continue spending without a care in the world. A balanced budget bill has been introduced in the US Senate. We should all lobby for its passage. How many of us are allowed to run up big deficits without any repercussions?

So they don't work with the cops at all? Perhaps that's why the suspect was able to flee the country. They may be exceptional crime scene investigators and handle evidence admirably but the human side of this case was botched. If the PD had been involved perhaps they would might have been able to prevent her flight to avoid prosecution. Arson is a crime and in this Houston case there were unrelated crimes.