The Evacuation of Lower Manhattan by Water Transport on September 11: An Unplanned “Success”

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Evacuation from Lower Manhattan

An estimated 2.2 million commuters were in New York City on a normal working day in 2001. With the collapse of the second (North) World Trade Center tower on September 11, most of the hundreds of thousands of commuters, as well as other workers, residents, and transients in the area, were blocked from leaving by the usual land routes. Streets were clogged with debris, and public transportation had ceased operations. Given the polluted and suffocating air, these people retreated south, many as

The Evacuation’s Success

By any criteria, the evacuation was an extremely successful endeavor. There appear to have been no fatalities or casualties in the operation; no vessel was involved in any accident. According to the Coast Guard, in the course of about 6 to 7 hours, perhaps up to 500,000 persons were moved. Later estimates have sometimes reduced the figure to around 300,000. Both totals seem reasonable, given that one ferry company alone counted transporting 158,502 evacuees.

It is difficult to see how the overall

Implications

Anyone involved in health care might consider the implications of the nature of the evacuation of lower Manhattan for emergency preparedness and emergency management activities. What unexpected problems might occur in a major disaster? What sort of crises might particularly require new kinds of organized responses? What sort of nontraditional resources (people and/or things) might be potentially available for emergencies? What preplanned steps might be taken to facilitate such new organized

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This article was adapted from a commentary, “Who Was in Charge of the Massive Evacuation of Lower Manhattan by Water Transport on September 11? No One Was, Yet It Was an Extremely Successful Operation. Implications?” which appeared in the Sep/Oct 2002 issue of Securitas, the newsletter of the Suburban Emergency Management Project in Lisle, Illinois (www.ben.edu/semp).

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