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In the early morning hours of May 16, 2004, OEM hosted Operation Transit SAFE, the City's first interagency subway exercise, at lower Manhattan's Bowling Green subway station. Inspired by the Madrid bombings of March 2004, the four-hour drill was designed to test the City's response to a terrorist attack in the subway.

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Office for Domestic Preparedness (ODP), Transit SAFE involved more than 500 emergency responders and 400 NYPD recruits and FDNY probationary firefighters posing as "victims" and "evacuees."

The scenario: Transit SAFE began as two simulated explosions occurred on separate subway trains in the Bowling Green station. Fire, police, and other rescue and law enforcement teams were immediately deployed to the scene to initiate rescue and response operations.

First responders discovered a third, unexploded device on one train, and the NYPD Bomb Squad worked quickly to remove it. Meanwhile, rescuers were challenged to assist victims and maintain rescue and site security operations amid the throng of evacuees exiting the station.

The exercise: Drawing participants from more than 60 agencies and organizations, Transit SAFE was designed specifically to test rescue, casualty management, crime scene investigation, environmental, law enforcement, logistics, mutual aid, and telecommunications aspects of the City's response to an incident in the subway system.

Participants were evaluated on objectives including:

• Interaction between facility operations personnel and local responders, including interaction during the transition period between internal facility response and external emergency response.
• Procedures to request, receive, and integrate response assets from numerous agencies.
• Interagency coordination of personnel.
• Ability to rescue, treat, and track casualties in a mass casualty incident (MCI).
• Ability to protect the public from the effects of a WMD attack.
• Procedures to ensure perimeter security/crime scene preservation.
  

The Mayor concluded the exercise with a press conference with City and State representatives.

The aftermath: Following the exercise, participants gathered for "debriefing" sessions, in which participants reviewed the sequence of events and exercise objectives. Smaller groups compiled after-action reports, which City agencies and participating organziations will draw on to amend and improve existing plans.