A public meeting hosted by DC 37 on Feb. 13 turned up frightening news: Almost a year and one-half after the 9/11 tragedy, the city’s Office of Emergency Management has yet to finish developing emergency evacuation plans for New York City’s buildings and neighborhoods.

The New York Committee on Occupational Safety and Health sponsored the forum on “Emergency Evacuation Planning.” NYCOSH Director Joel Shufro expressed dismay at the OEM’s poor performance.

“Unions have had a hard enough time pushing employers to comply with federal regulations for office-level evacuation plans, let alone worrying about the building and area-wide levels. So it is disturbing that the city has admittedly failed to finalize emergency response plans,” said Mr. Shufro.

Get input from workers
He said he is particularly disturbed that the responsible agencies have not sought input from the people most affected by these plans and most knowledgeable about working conditions — workers.

Lee Clarke, director of DC 37’s Safety and Health Dept., criticized the OEM for its lack of direction and lack of communication.

“They need to go back to basics and start talking to the people who will have to work with the plans,” she said. Ms. Clarke lives within blocks of the Feb. 21 Staten Island oil barge explosion. She said the chaos surrounding the accident demonstrated the importance of putting emergency plans in place and publicizing them.

“Even if people wanted to self-evacuate, they couldn’t,” she said. “People were prohibited from driving on the streets, roadblocks were set up, and community residents were never informed that Tottenville High School was the site of an emergency shelter.”

Panelist Jonathan Rosen, director of environmental health and safety for the Public Employees Federation, noted that, “the need for good emergency response and evacuation plans existed before

9/11.” For Rosen, the main point is that “good emergency plans can save lives. Union members — with management — have to make sure these plans are in place. The union has to get involved.”

“There’s no substitute for a written plan which everybody gets a chance to practice,” said Stanley Dawe, chief of fire prevention for the city Fire Dept.

The OEM representative at the conference, Deputy Commissioner Michael Berkowitz, failed to convey a sense of urgency on the part of his agency to the task at hand. The OEM did not start work on its emergency evacuation plan until August 2002 and is still working on pulling it together.

Participants said additional forums and training sessions on the topic are needed. In conclusion, one representative from the state AFL-CIO commented, apparently without irony: “The OEM representative should have been more prepared for this type of audience. A follow-up might be good if the questions were given to him prior to the meeting.”