Terror drills carried out at Grand Central as dozens of emergency workers prepared for worst

[x635 4,066]

Terror drills carried out at Grand Central as dozens of emergency workers prepared for worst

BY Vanessa Parker

DAILY NEWS WRITER

Sunday, October 17th 2010, 4:00 AM

Grand Central Terminal was on high alert Saturday - at least it appeared to be - as dozens of emergency workers carried out a terrorism drill at the city's busiest rail hub

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/10/17/2010-10-17_emergency_workers_practice_for_grand_disaster.html#ixzz12cx9xArU

[Haggerty 1029 16]

Pretty cool article, Grand Central has their own FD? Do they opperate rigs or just inside the building?

[SRS131EMTFF 471]

Pretty cool article, Grand Central has their own FD? Do they opperate rigs or just inside the building?

They operate a fire brigade, essentially MTA employees stationed at GCT are trained to NYSFF1/NYSEMT-B and will respond to incidents in the terminal. They have essentially go carts parked and locked away filled with basic first response and basic fire suppression and first aid equipment. Any major emergencies and transports to the hospital are covered by FDNY and FDNY EMS.

[M' Ave 1,466]

To expand a little further; they serve as EMT's, primarily. That is the function they act in on most occasions. From a fire/emergency prospective, they act as key liaisons, especially the Fire Brigade Chiefs. We attend in service training sessions with the Fire Brigade chief's on a a regular basis. They are able to go over equipment specifications and hazards as well as discuss how we would proceed in the event of an emergency.

The fire brigade in Grand Central doesn't have the apparatus to mitigate much more than a small rubbish fire, however there knowledge of the terminal and it's inner-workings is essential for responding FDNY and EMS units.

[16fire5 693]

My experience was not the same at GCT. I estimate the fire brigade met me at the command post 20% of the times I responded there. Stuck elevators were like a wild goose chase. Outside of normal buisness hours they were not really there.

[FDNYDCHI 38]

With the Fire Brigade it all depends on when the Incident occurs. We have fire brigade members staffed during the week 24 hours, and on the weekends sometimes yes and no. All of the Brigade members are craft/ union guys with Metro north. They also do EMS, fire drills, inspections etc.

There is a full time Fire chief and now an assistant Fire chief. They are dispatched by the fire command center located in the terminal.

If you have a more questions PM me

Chris

Control Center Coordinator

FCC

[ny10570 745]

When the brigade meets you for a call especially in the cavernous bowels of GCT it makes it it a breeze. Often they even have the patient headed out to us...when they're there. Other times its the goose chase.

[tbendick 27]

The problem with the brigade not meeting us, is the use of cell phones. Lots of times people call it in to 911 and GCT never gets notified. The only thing I can think of to fix that issue would be to place a FDNY MDT at the FCS and assign it to all the runs in the terminal, so they know when we are headed over.