By Timothy Williams, The Associated Press
New York (AP) -- The Bloomberg administration announced Tuesday it will have a written protocol of how the police and fire departments will divide emergency response duties within 30 days, even as the plan continues to generate disputes.
A key provision of the Citywide Incident Management System, or CIMS, gives overall authority for hazardous-materials, chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear emergencies to the police department, even though those areas have traditionally been under fire department control.
Despite opposition from some members of the fire department and several members of the City Council, Office of Emergency Management Commissioner Joseph Bruno told a council committee Tuesday that he is working on a written protocol laying out the changes. The plan will be finished within 30 days and implemented by an Oct. 1 federal deadline, he said.
Acknowledging the controversy about the plan, Bruno said, “It may suffer from a lot of things, but it doesn’t suffer from a lack of logic.”
Changes to the city’s emergency response system were mandated by the federal government after the 2001 World Trade Center attack to formalize responses to terrorist attacks and other major emergencies.
Cities that fail to adopt a uniform national program by the Oct. 1 deadline will not be eligible for federal homeland security funding.
The federal mandate is meant to ensure the smooth interworking of federal, state and local agencies by assuring that they use a consistent set of terms and roles known as the national incident command system.
As the city prepared to meet the federal requirements, the police department insisted on being the lead agency in any situation involving terrorist attacks, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg agreed.
The fire department will continue to be responsible for all safety operations and decontamination during such incidents, though the police will be in charge of the site management, according to the city’s plan.
Though police Commissioner Ray Kelly and fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta support the plan, several firefighter unions said the change makes little sense and will increase the traditional rivalry between the departments.
The president of the Uniformed EMTs and Paramedics, Patrick Bahnken, said the new protocol was “like gift-wrapping garbage.”
“It may look nice on the outside, but on the inside it stinks just the same,” he said. “It does not work, and I assure you -- mark my words -- this will not reduce conflicts.”
Scoppetta, however, said that as long as the two departments train jointly the protocol will work.
“I think it’s an important first step in delineating issues of command and control,” he said.
Kelly defended the police department’s new role, saying the Sept. 11 trade center attack changed everything so that now even a routine Hazmat accident must be treated with a high level of security.
“Due to the very real possibility that (a Hazmat incident) could be a terrorist attack or a rehearsal or diversion for an actual attack, site security is paramount,” Kelly said.
But council members remained skeptical, saying that in several emergency situations outlined in the plan -- including Hazmat emergencies and explosions -- neither department is clearly in charge and even in circumstances similar to the trade center attack the lead agency remains unclear.
“The whole idea behind this was to create a clear chain of command,” Councilwoman Yvette Clarke said. “And what you’re doing now is you are really muddying the situation.”