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by WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
The Bloomberg administration announced yesterday that its emergency agencies had reached a formal agreement that details how they plan to coordinate their responses to major disasters, including everything from building collapses to biological attacks by terrorists.
In the event of a building collapse, for instance, the Fire Department will direct the rescues and response; in a civil disturbance, the Police Department will be responsible.
But in 10 critical situations, including chemical, biological or radiological incidents or a major bomb explosion, the agreement says little more than that the Police and Fire Departments will work together - in some cases with other agencies - and divide their efforts according to their respective areas of expertise, as defined in the agreement.
As a result, and in part due to the longstanding discord between the two departments, the protocols - the first ever actually agreed upon in the city by all its emergency agencies - came under immediate attack, from some Fire Department and fire union officials and several emergency response experts.
They argued that the city had, in effect, failed to resolve the critical command and control issues that were evident at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 and that have provoked widespread concern about the city's true preparedness for a similarly large attack.
"This document formalizes the chaos that existed on 9/11; it does nothing to unify command," said Capt. Peter Gorman, president of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association.
At the Police Department, however, officials "were very pleased with the outcome,'' one official said.
The city's announcement of the agreement - in a two-page press release without public comment by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg or his police and fire commissioners - came just days before the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is scheduled to hold public hearings in New York. The commission had made clear that it was troubled by the city's failure to formalize an Incident Command System.
Joseph F. Bruno, the new commissioner of the Office of Emergency Management, applauded the development. Since he took office in April, Mr. Bruno has overseen the negotiations on the protocols. He called the agreement a breakthrough of sorts, and promised that the city agencies would overcome any confusion about shared roles in major incidents by training together and carefully reviewing their performances.
"But we haven't just said, 'Put this out in the street and let them battle it out,' '' Mr. Bruno said. "We think that through real serious training, through understanding what we're doing, through recognition in management of the agencies that this is an important program, that it has to work - that they're going to make it work."
For the last two and a half years, the agencies have waged a backstage battle to enlarge, or preserve, their roles in any future disaster. In October 2003, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly and Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta said such an accord was actually unnecessary, despite a report by a private consultant that criticized their agencies' responses to the World Trade Center attack and that specifically said such a plan was needed to respond to any other large catastrophe. Then last July, they said they would sign such an accord after they learned it was required to qualify for grants from the Department of Homeland Security.
But as recently as April, negotiations on the guidelines seemed mired in interagency rivalry, with an agreement more than six months late and the Police Department arguing that it should control virtually every major emergency.
While the plan described in the news release seems, on its face, to resolve some of those disputes - with, for example, firefighters taking the lead in search and rescue, an arena in which police Emergency Service Unit officers also have worked - the lack of details left questions unanswered. Moreover, one emergency management expert who has worked with both departments said the formal agreement did little to address the broader problems that would face the city's emergency agencies in the event of another catastrophic terrorist attack: They cannot communicate with one another, they do not train together and they use equipment that is not compatible. At the same time, both police officers and firefighters do many of the same jobs, from hazardous materials work to water rescues and extricating victims from cars after auto accidents.
The guidelines allow a criminal investigation to begin along with lifesaving operations, with rescue the priority. After the rescue is completed, the investigation will become the priority, and only after investigative authorities permit, the recovery operation will begin.
The new plan is based on a unified command model in which senior police and fire officials, and in many cases those from other city agencies, will work together in a command center in addressing the 10 major types of disasters. They include aviation incidents, public health emergencies, rail incidents and blackouts, as well as the chemical, biological and radiological incidents that most officials believe might come with a terrorist attack. It gives the authority to direct operations to the agency that has the expertise - called "core competencies" - to handle the situation. For example, because the Fire Department's core competencies include search and rescue, it will oversee the work of the police at a building collapse, with direction being given to police officers at the scene through their commander.
The protocol, in discussing 18 other kinds of less complex incidents, gives the police authority in sniper attacks, civil disturbances, boats in distress and bomb threats and places the Fire Department in charge at fires, stuck elevators, confined space rescues and impalements.
The new protocol in many ways mirrors a set of guidelines from 1996, which set out which emergency agency would be in charge at different types of incidents, yet was never enforced and failed to resolve the longstanding and bitter disputes between the two agencies. The new guidelines, known as a Citywide Incident Management System or CIMS, brings the city into accord with the federal National Incident Management System, or NIMS, a blueprint for emergency response nationwide, which, with its own set of protocols and terminology, is meant to allow agencies from different areas to work together.
The new plan differs from the 1996 guidelines in at least one key respect, an area of significant dispute between the Fire and Police Departments. It makes the police the primary agency at all chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear hazardous materials incidents, with the responsibility to manage the site, conduct an assessment and handle the investigation. It gives the Fire Department responsibility for lifesaving, mitigation and decontamination. The assessment role, several officials said, is extremely important; many fire officials believe it should be their province because of what they say is their department's greater training and expertise.
Under the 1996 guidelines, hazardous materials incidents that were considered criminal acts, such as bomb blasts or intentional chemical releases, would be overseen by the police, while non-criminal incidents such as tanker spills or accidental chemical releases would be handled by the Fire Department. That structure was criticized as it was often difficult to determine if an incident was accidental or criminal until critical time had passed.
Some observers still say that the new protocol for hazardous materials remains flawed. "I don't know if you can divorce assessment from life safety," said Glenn Corbett, an assistant professor of fire science at John Jay College, who added that it was important for the rescuers committing resources inside an affected area to do all assessments.
Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr., the head of the Public Safety Committee, criticized the plan, saying that while he and his staff have been dealing with the issue for a year, they could not understand the mayor's press release. "It says anything anyone wants it to say - it raises more questions than it answers," he said. He plans to hold a hearing on the issue in June.
Michelle O'Donnell contributed reporting for this article.
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