Readying the Rails: The New Jersey EMS Railway Plan
A lot of things can threaten critical infrastructure like passenger rail systems: natural disasters, accidents, terror attacks. That’s particularly true for rail systems that serve major American cities like those within New Jersey and its adjacent metropolitan areas of New York and Philadelphia. These types of emergencies can be challenging for EMS responders.
Since 1995 there have been more than 250 terror attacks worldwide against passenger rail targets, resulting in nearly 900 deaths and more than 6,000 injuries. The New Jersey EMS Task Force (NJEMSTF) was developed following the September 11, 2001 attacks to help prepare for, plan and respond to catastrophic events in New Jersey and its region, as well as elsewhere in the nation via the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC). In 2008 the NJEMSTF initiated a vulnerability analysis to determine how best to respond, site-specifically, to vulnerable areas such as ports, bridges, tunnels and passenger rail systems.
The first product the NJEMSTF developed to address mass casualties within the maritime domain was a 600-page port security initiative. This was implemented in a large-scale mass-casualty event for the first time on January 15, 2009, when U.S. Airways Flight 1549 landed in the Hudson River. It was an overwhelming success.
The NJEMSTF then took response guidelines from that initiative and best practices and lessons learned from authorities like Madrid’s emergency services, the London Ambulance Service, District of Columbia Fire and EMS, the Los Angeles Fire Department, Jersey City Medical Center EMS, the Hudson County OEM and many other agencies, and created its Passenger Rail Security EMS Plan. The plan incorporates numerous reference materials, including federal, state, private and international resources, textbooks, reports and documentaries. Its authors invested more than 10,000 man-hours, and more than 70 agencies collaborated between its inception and completion.
Assembling the Passenger Rail Security Plan began with a kickoff meeting in October 2009 that included nearly 80 representatives from local EMS agencies and the state OEM, as well as state, federal and private planning partners. Completed in March 2011, the plan is an unprecedented 1,238-page detailed document representing the largest EMS planning project in New Jersey’s history.
New Jersey’s rail network consists of 14 short-line railroads, two regional railroads and three national railroads. Terminal stations in Trenton and Newark serve passengers traveling the Northeast Corridor from Washington, DC, to Boston. Rail providers include New Jersey Transit, Amtrak, PATH (the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey), PATCO and the Delaware River Port Authority.
We divided the railway project into four phases. Phase I outlines a plan for the state’s most vulnerable rail stations. There are more than 300 stations throughout the state overall, and the most vulnerable (38 in 10 counties) must have either a ridership of at least 500,000 per year or be attached to critical infrastructure like an airport, sporting arena or entertainment venue. For smaller rail stations that do not meet these criteria, we designed generic planning templates.
Phase II focuses on disasters between stations and in remote areas, which includes the North River high-speed and Port Authority Trans-Hudson tunnels that connect New Jersey with New York via the Hudson River.
Phase III addresses the coordination and acquisition of resources necessary if multiple rail sites are affected in a mass-casualty event. This will facilitate coordination among municipal, county, state and federal EMS entities.
Phase IV concerns informing and training EMS personnel to deal with hazards in a rail environment. Senior training specialists at New Jersey Transit Rail Operations partnered with the New Jersey Emergency Preparedness Association and others to introduce a rail safety course to emergency responders. The course covers a brief history of New Jersey transit, addresses the importance of safety awareness, outlines the various railroad response agencies and train crews, and introduces the rail equipment with which first responders should be familiar. It reviews tunnel and station hazards, locomotive emergency shutdown procedures, emergency brakes, emergency door release handles, trap doors and emergency window operations (and has 200 pages of detailed rail maps for reference).
The plan is implemented first at the local level. It provides for first responders/EMS the objectives and critical actions to be met within the first 90 minutes of a response. Included are area hospitals and their capabilities, designated EMS facilities (e.g., incident and regional staging areas, casualty collection points, treatment and transportation areas, as well the respective inherent characteristics each must possess should an assigned location change), air medical facilities, communications plans, hazards, maps, GIS images, and aerial and ground photos of facilities. The plan also outlines continuity of operations, rehabilitation and demobilization.
Local EMS providers and county OEM EMS coordinators have been provided with the plan and site-specific maps. Dispatch centers can access it digitally, and steps have been taken to have the plan placed on a secure Web location for download and access within seconds on mobile devices.
The Passenger Rail Security EMS Plan was first implemented on Mother’s Day, 2011, after a PATH train crashed into a station bumper at the Erie Lackawanna terminal in Hoboken, injuring 34. The local crew dispatched to the site notified the EMS chief. The chief arrived to confirm the mass-casualty event and then notified the Hudson County OEM EMS coordinator, as outlined.
Since its inception in October 2009, the Passenger Rail Security Plan has been presented by NJEMSTF in forums such as a federal transportation safety best practices roundtable held in Denver and the Transportation Research Board’s 2011 Transportation Hazards and Security Summit.
Significant Recent Terror-Related Railway Incidents
Moscow, 2010—Two female suicide bombers killed at least 40 with separate blasts at Moscow Metro stations. Chechen rebels thought behind the attack were killed as authorities tried to arrest them.
Russia, 2009—The Nevsky Express bombing derailed a high-speed train traveling between Moscow and St. Petersburg, killing 27. A second bomb aimed at investigators exploded at the site the next day. Twelve ethnic Ingush were charged.
India/Pakistan, 2007—Two bombs exploded on the Samjhauta (Friendship) Express night train from Delhi to Lahore, killing 68. Other suitcase IEDs were found on board. The devices were small but intended to cause fires; lower-class coaches on Indian trains generally have barred windows. No one has been convicted.
Mumbai, 2006—Seven pressure-cooker bombs detonated over 11 minutes on Mumbai’s Suburban Railway, killing 209 and injuring more than 700. Authorities blamed Muslim extremists and the Pakistani government, but no one has been convicted.
London, 2005—The 7/7 suicide bombings on the London Underground and a double-decker bus killed 52 civilians (plus four Muslim terrorists) and hurt more than 700.
Madrid, 2004—Ten coordinated explosions on four trains killed 191 and injured 1,800 on Madrid’s Cercanias commuter train system. Investigators blamed al Qaeda-inspired terrorists; 21 were convicted, including two sentenced to more than 40,000 years in prison.
Luz Celeste Nieves, MD, MS, received her training in emergency medicine at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center in Newark, NJ, and currently serves as a part-time attending and full-time EMS/Disaster Medicine Fellow at the same institution. She has a keen interest in international medicine and seeks to combine her experiences with the unique and elite training the EMS and Disaster Medicine fellowship at Newark Beth Israel offers to help develop EMS systems both in the United States and abroad. Dr. Nieves also has a Master’s degree in Health Care Policy and Management from Stony Brook University.
Henry P. Cortacans, MS, NREMT-P, serves as the state planner assigned to the Urban Areas Securities Initiative of the New Jersey EMS Task Force. He is also a certified emergency manager through the International Association of Emergency Managers.
Mark A. Merlin, DO, EMT-P, FACEP, is an assistant professor and EMS medical director in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey’s Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, as well as medical director for the New Jersey EMS Task Force and EMS/Disaster Medicine Fellowship.
