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A joint training exercise between the US Army and New York’s first responders on Randall’s Island is preparing the Big Apple for “America’s worst day.”
And they’re prepping for any scenario — from a missile attack on Yankee Stadium to a biological weapon attack in the city subway system.
“Everybody needs to get back to training,” said Col. Chris McKinney, chief of staff of the Army’s Task Force 46. “And you see the happiness on the kids’ faces ’cause they’re getting to practice their craft, and they’re getting to learn it from the best in the business.
“So, I mean, FDNY, NYPD here — they’ve done so much stuff,” McKinney said.
The three-day “Dense Urban Terrain Exercise,” which wrapped up Thursday, had city firefighters, NYPD and Port Authority cops working with National Guard troops to prepare for the worst.
And it starts with everyone speaking the same language.
“They speak Army, we speak fire department,” FDNY Battalion Chief Edward Ryan said. “So, by training together we get to understand each other’s lingo.
“Little things, like we have what we call a FAST Team, which is firefighter assist team,” Ryan said. “They call (it) a RIT, or rapid intervention team. Same basic idea, different terminology. So, by doing that today, I now know if I hear that.”
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The training exercises, including rapid response to a subway attack, aren’t all that far-fetched, particularly after what the city endured on Sept. 11, 2001.
In 2018, an accidental steam pipe explosion in the subway system spread asbestos in the tunnels and forced the evacuation of 50 Midtown buildings.
“It’s relationships, right?” McKinney said of the training. “You’ve got to bring credibility and trust to the table. And that’s something that’s near and dear to our hearts with these partners. Should we ever have to respond — and that’s why we train — we need to know what we’re doing, we need to know how to plug in to support a city.”