Repeat: This is only a test

    By: Tom MacDonald

    Philadelphia officials are satisfied with their response to a test of the city’s Emergency Operations Center. The test is mandated by the state, and WHYY’s Tom MacDonald reports the mock operation was meant to test the system.

    By: Tom MacDonald
    tmacdonald@whyy.org

    Philadelphia officials are satisfied with their response to a test of the city’s Emergency Operations Center. The test is mandated by the state, and WHYY’s Tom MacDonald reports the mock operation was meant to test the system.

    Transcript:
    Deputy Managing Director MaryAnn Tierney says to test the capacity of the Emergency Management System, officials cooked up a day of disasters that could rival Armageddon.

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    Tierney:  “Which included several fires, a subway accident, a couple of explosions, severe weather, things like that. The idea is to stress the system so there are a lot more emergencies than would typically occur during any day in the city, all happening at the same time to stress the system as much as possible.”

    Tierney says aside from a lack of chairs in the command center, state officials were pleased with the drill, and gave the city a passing grade.

    Listen:
    Click on the play button below or right click on this link and choose “Save Link As” to download. [audio: reports20090305test.mp3]

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