Planning for Disaster, From London to New York

RPA’s Annual Regional Assembly, Come What May: Planning in an Age of Disaster, will be held on Friday, May 5, at the Waldorf-Astoria. The keynote address will be delivered by Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, and the day’s speakers also include Rep. Anthony Weiner, Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi, Port Authority Chairman Tony Coscia, Assemblyman Richard Brodsky and many experts on preparing for and recovering from disasters. Moderating the morning plenary panel will be a man who has dealt with man-made disaster firsthand, Robert R. Kiley, former Chief of Transport for London and previously head of New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

When a series of human bombs exploded largely below ground in London last July, killing 56 people and injuring about 700, Kiley was among a small group of top officials that had to decide how to react in the short and long term. Recently retired as head of London’s transit system after years of intense scrimmaging over transit policy, Kiley will be in New York for the Regional Assembly. In preparation for that event, Kiley spoke this week with Spotlight editor Alex Marshall about how to prepare and respond to terrorism strikes or other disasters. It was clear that the events of last July still occupy center stage in much of Kiley’s thoughts. Some of Kiley’s conclusions – that high technology is so far of little use, that random checks are unproductive, and that the system’s openness should not be compromised – may surprise people. Whatever one concludes, it’s clear there is no one better prepared to start a conversation on how to prepare or confront disaster in this region. What follows is an edited version of Kiley’s conversation with Marshall.

Alex Marshall: How does London compare to New York, when it comes to terrorism or general disaster prevention?
Bob Kiley: London and New York are so similar on this subject, it’s hard to segregate them. What works or doesn’t work here or there is about the same. I think New York City is spending a fair amount of money on trying to find out if there are technological fixes. We are not doing as much on that here.

AM: Can you detail the ways the cities are similar?
BK: The cities are roughly the same size; London is arguably the finance capital of the world; the two together control more than half of the financial transactions in the world. In New York you have Midtown and Lower Manhattan, which are two of the three largest downtowns in the country. In London you have the so called City of London, the one mile square area that includes the financial district, and Canary Wharf, which is the new kid on the block and is growing rapidly. Both London and New York have large metro systems, although New York’s is larger than London’s. There are about 480 stations in New York, and more track mileage, as opposed to 270 stations here. In both cities, you have whole regions that revolve around mass transit.

AM: What are some of the specific defenses that have been taken on the London metro system?
BK: The London underground has been heavily relying on cameras for years. At the time the bombing occurred, there were 6,000 underground cameras surveying activity there. In addition, every single bus also has closed circuit television. The images are relayed into a central control room. The number of closed-circuit televisions on the underground is being doubled over the next few years, and the technology is being upgraded to digital.

AM: Are the cameras helpful?
BK: As an American arriving here, I was taken aback by the cameras and at first I thought they were intrusive and overbearing. But I’ve changed my view. They do help, particularly in deterring criminal activity. People are very reluctant to engage in criminal activity if they know they are being filmed. Without cameras, people could be very vulnerable walking through long passageways underground between lines where there are sometimes few other people. I would come down as an advocate of deploying cameras strategically.

But cameras, while effective against crime, cannot do much to stop someone walking in with a bomb strapped around his stomach and determined to blow himself up. The point is that there are things you can do [to stop terrorist attacks], but they are limited. If there were such a thing as taking a picture of faces and matching them with a known data base of bad guys, that would be great. But that technology doesn’t exist yet. To me, the way to do this is for intelligence organizations to be out in communities, not in a menacing or threatening way, but to be engaged in the community, to find out what’s going on. Get to know people, encourage them to come in and talk with you. That is the way to go about it. This should be in all communities, not just ethnic or minority or poor. The people who did the bombings in Britain were middle class. I believe this is a more fruitful approach than asking ourselves, “What can we do when the terrorists are actually inside the trains?” which is almost nothing. By definition, a subway is very vulnerable, because it’s completely open. That’s the definition of mass transit. What’s the defense against people with explosives wrapped around their stomachs from getting in? Not a lot. I don’t think throwing a lot of money at this problem is necessarily the solution.

AM: What do you think of the random checks on bags and packages being performed in New York’s subway system?
BK: If they are doing that on the basis of information they gave gathered from outside, I’m all for it. If they are simply doing that as a deployment strategy regardless of information, I would say it’s simply bulls**t and it won’t work.

AM: How is preparing for a natural disaster different than preparing for a terrorist attack?
BK: Defending against a hurricane or such starts with long term thinking on the odds that those things will happen. Calculating the odds of a terrorist attack is much more difficult. To prepare against a hurricane or flooding, you can erect levees like in New Orleans or the gates across the river Thames here. But when it gets to something like the Tube here, or the subway in New York, there is not a lot you can do at the gateway itself. If you want to conduct airport like security on mass transit, it won’t be mass transit anymore. It will be limited transit.

AM: Is there any general advice you can give in preparing for either natural or manmade disasters?
BK: There are things you can do to minimize casualties and respond to disasters. Those are after-event actions. On the proactive preventive side, it’s much more complicated. There is no technology solution that will catch people literally as they show up at the station. The real issue here is with suicide bombers, the normal deterrent factors are not there. They don’t care. They walk in, and they don’t plan to walk out.

This situation is not new. There were these sorts of suicide bombings going on in the 19th century and early 20th century, with the anarchists and other groups. The challenge is how can you stop something in an environment as open as the streets of Vienna or the streets of London? These systems don’t work if they are not open.

AM: What would you like to talk about when you are here in two weeks?
BK: On the fifth of May, I will talk about the events of last July, including what went well, what didn’t go well, and what lessons can we learn in the future.

To attend the Regional Assembly on Friday May 5th, register online at www.rpa.org or call Amanda Jones at 212/253-2727, ext. 317.

– Alex Marshall, Editor, Spotlight on the Region

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