Editorial on Emergency Plan (5/15/04)

RIOC brought in representatives of State and City Offices of Emergency Planning. They talked about avoiding carbon monoxide accumulation in closed garages and who has responsibility for dealing with forest fires in the Adirondacks. But nothing specific to the special problems of Roosevelt Island, where the wrong kind of disaster could leave us cut off from emergency services, medical assistance, and transportation for evacuation.

Perhaps it’s good that we waited, for Thursday night at the RIOC Board meeting, resident Board member Patrick Stewart took it upon himself to lecture Residents Association President Matthew Katz, the current president of RIRA, suggesting that outraged residents expressed themselves inappropriately at the emergency plan meeting. Stewart seemed to be saying Katz should take on the job of keeping residents from expressing their profound frustration and disappointment at attending a meeting advertised as Roosevelt Island-specific, only to be shown tables of organization for State agencies.

But Katz calmly asked the right questions: “Perhaps the kind of planning that is necessary really needs to be done here,” he suggested gently, tactfully failing to mention that it’s been eight months since the Blackout and the promise of an emergency plan for the Island. “I think that there’s some planning that might be done,” he continued, and then came the questions to which all Islanders should have answers: “If there’s a Blackout during extreme weather, we’ve been told that there’s a high school at Broadway and 21st Street in Astoria to provide services to this area. How are people going to get there? Will the Red Buses be used? Can the Red Buses be used in Queens? Can they go over the 59th Street Bridge to Manhattan? Where will the Red Buses pick people up? Can we provide a heating or cooling facility on the Island? Where should that be? Should it be the school? What kind of arrangements need to be made with the school?”

Katz further pointed out that emergency service access is via a lift bridge, and asked whether arrangements exist to operate the bridge manually if a power emergency hits while the bridge is up. “These are questions that need to be answered, and those answers shared with the people of this community,” he concluded.

Indeed. And the answers should have been part of that meeting back in April. They were not, and few are apparently available now. It means, among other things, that more time will pass before this Island is genuinely prepared for a repeat of last summer’s Blackout, let alone something more serious.

So RIOC Board members can save their lectures on how residents should behave at bait-and-switch meetings where officialdom passes off a display of organizational charts as Island-specific emergency planning information. And RIOC should get on with its proper governmental function – of making the plans necessary for this community’s next emergency.