The Cloverfield movie starts shortly after midnight on Saturday, May 23, 2009. A huge monster attacks Manhattan, announcing itself by destroying an oil tanker and decapitating the Statue of Liberty.
Despite uncomfortable images reminiscent of 9/11, I enjoyed the movie and its unique perspective. It is shot entirely through the viewfinder of a camcorder, ending at 6:45 Saturday morning.
[photopress:Mike_22_jan_a.jpg,full,centered]
The actors arrived at a well-developed forward command post, battalion aid station and decontamination unit within a street-level retail store. This scene is essential for the story, but it is an amazing compression of time.
It was hard to believe that New York City would receive such a rapid military response, even in today’s environment. I doubt such a facility could be established within three or four hours of an unanticipated attack.
In the real world, such essential actions take time. The federally supported Urban Search and Rescue Teams are expected to ready for deployment within four hours of a formal federal notification. I know that action-oriented people can significantly compress time when confronted with a major emergency.
In an article published in the April 2002 issues of JEMS and Fire-Rescue Magazine, I documented the response of the fire-rescue 1st responders to the Pentagon.
When the second jetliner struck the World Trade Center, no one needed an official notification that something big was going on. Mobilization efforts immediately began. The Fairfax County USAR team was rolling within two hours of the attack.
REALITY: 1st RESPONDERS WILL HANDLE THE FIRST 24 TO 48 HOURS ALONE
There is a reason local responders have received millions of dollars in federal funds since the 2001 attacks. Local emergency service responders will be doing most of the work in the first couple of days, while the federal response ramps up. You should plan on two to four days handling a huge event before the federal response is ready to engage.
This is not new. When a chemical train derailed and caught fire in a tunnel under downtown Baltimore on July 19, 2001 at 4:30 pm, the city quickly notified the federal and industry employees. They started arriving around noon on July 20th.
The first 20 hours of this event was primarily handled by the City of Baltimore, State Police and the Maryland Department of the Environment. The specialized equipment from the rail carrier and others showed two days after the derailment.
[photopress:Mike_22_jan_b.jpg,full,centered]
The Baltimore chemical fire was serious enough to require a partial evacuation of the downtown area and shut major league baseball down for three days. The mayor called for the civil defense sirens to be activated around six pm, the citizen response can at best be called “what was that?”
RESPONSE TO MONSTER ATTACKS IN A POST 9/11 WORLD
There is a different response now. What used to be apathy and hostility by high rise occupants has been replaced with a near complete dumping of a high-rise if there is burnt popcorn in the 17th-floor break room. In a 2005 Chicago seminar on high-rise fire safety, chiefs from Chicago, New York and Los Angeles report no difficulties in getting high-rises evacuated.
What is also different is the amount of help available through the National Guard. The war on terror has resulted in an unprecedented assignment of reservists and reservist equipment to the war effort.
A year ago the General Accountability Office documented this situation with a 59 page report: “RESERVE FORCES: Actions Needed to Identify National Guard Domestic Equipment Requirements and Readiness.” You can download the Adobe Acrobat .pdf report here: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d0760.pdf
This report, written after the Katrina disaster, indicates that a realistic portrayal of the first six hours of a monster attack on New York City would show most of the actions undertaken by city and state emergency management officials.
There would be a quick military response, with a command-and-control team and fighter jets quickly overhead. It will take a while to get the boots on the ground.
In real life, the decontamination units would be from FDNY. Street-level triage and first aid stations would be run by the hospitals, FDNY EMS and the voluntary/private ambulances.
Just like the 2001 anthrax scare, it will be the dedicated folks in the NYC health department that will quickly develop a protocol for handling the humans bitten by the parasites. They will be providing their findings and recommendations to the Centers for Disease Control.
The event would be handled through the city joint command and communication center.
[photopress:Mike_22_jan_c.jpg,full,centered]
Hopefully, this type of catastrophe remains in the realm of fiction.
Mike “FossilMedic” Ward
Also on FireGeezer…
- Shock … followed by purposeful action – September 11, 2011
- FDNY down to 166 calls waiting Tuesday morning from height of 1300 during blizzard – December 29, 2010
- Two approaches to a NYC blizzard – December 31, 2010
- DCFD lives … maybe! Fire and Emergency Services Logo Clarification Act of 2011 – April 5, 2011
Pingback: cloverfield monster