Like most New Yorkers, I'd be just as happy to see New Jersey wiped off of the map.
But I suppose, on the off chance that bio-agents unleashed by terrorists might somehow be able to make it past the Holland Tunnel, that it's a good idea for the Department of Homeland Security to run a 10,000-person drill for first responders in the Garden State (and in Connecticut, too).
"According to the script" set for TOPOFF 3, DHS' bi-annual exercise for coping with unconventional strikes, "terrorists planning to attack New York and Boston suspect their plans have been compromised and launch a premature attack by dispersing a biological agent from a car in New Jersey," the AP reports. (Because who plans on going to Jersey?)
"As seriously injured people begin to flood local hospitals, the chemical attack that had been planned for Boston also is launched prematurely -- in the town of New London, Connecticut, some 250 kilometers away."
Which sucks, because New London has some really great fish and chips.
Anyway, there have hopefully been a few lessons learned since 2003's TOPOFF 2, which simulated biological and "dirty bomb" strikes in Chicago and Seattle. In the Windy City, local officials lacked an "efficient emergency communications infrastructure" to deal the bio-attack, according to an a summary of the drill afterwards. Seattle had "critical" problems in trying to determine where radiological plumes had spread.
Better luck this time, fellas. I guess.
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