Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly says it will "address the possibility of a nuclear or radioactive device coming into the city." Special units will be assessed on how well they detect, intercept and defuse a dirty bomb or other device.
The drill on Tuesday night -- someone had hidden a weapon of mass destruction on a highway outside New York City. The mission for this mock scenario with very real possibilities: to detect locate and disarm a weapon which could harm millions.
Using the southbound lanes of the Clearview Expressway, detouring actual traffic, federal agents and the NYPD used both handheld devices and a new highly sensitive truck-mounted detector to locate which vehicle mock weapon planted inside.
The NYPD hopes to eventually ring the city with permanent state of art radiation detection capability. That would require the federal government to reinvest in the securing our cities program allowing city like New York and surrounding towns to work together. But the budget for that federal initiative is now at 0.
Drills like this could secure those federal dollars. This one will also cost a few hundred thousand dollars.
--- Some information from The Associated Press.
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NOTICE FROM NYPD:
From 9 p.m. through 4 a.m. Wednesday, June 10, the New York City Police Department will participate in a joint counter-terrorism exercise with the FBI in the vicinity of the Clearview Expressway between exits 3 and 4 in Queens.
Please be advised that due to this full scale exercise, traffic delays are anticipated on the Clearview Expressway between the hours of 9 p.m. on Tuesday, June 9th and 1 a.m. on Wednesday, June 10th, 2009.
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