This morning between 10:00 and 10:30 A.M. an Air Force One lookalike accompanied by two F-16 fighter jets made a flyover of Lower Manhattan. Although this was a scheduled exercise so that the Air Force could take pictures, the lack of public awareness regarding the situation resulted in the mass evacuations of several buildings throughout Manhattan and Jersey City. With the recent attacks of September 11th still extremely fresh in their minds, people wasted no time in leaving the buildings as soon as they saw the plane over the city. Within minutes, 911 operators were flooded with calls from concerned citizens, and even the markets seem to have been effected with the Dow Jones dropping 40 points during the flyover before rebounding 50 points after it became apparent that all was well. Although the New York City and New Jersey State police forces were notified about the flyover, they were given strict instructions not to inform the public. Additionally, Notify NYC, a system designed to send out text messages to New Yorkers in case of an emergency situation, sent out messages explaining the circumstances at 10:38, which was after the flyover was already completed.
The complete failure of officials to even attempt to notify the public of this situation is absolutely unacceptable. For a city that has been attacked so recently, it is completely ridiculous to think that an unannounced flyover of Lower Manhattan would not be met by a panic. The lack of coordination led to a complete shutdown of several buildings for almost half an hour, and put an unnecessary strain on police and 911 operators, who could have been using the time to deal with actual problems. Worst of all, following today, people may be much more reluctant to evacuate in case of a real threat. It would have been extremely simple to send out a memo or even an e-mail to office buildings and have them announce the message over their PA systems before the flyover was scheduled to commence, but for whatever reason no efforts were made until after the panic had already begun.
Despite the gross negligence of officials, I applaud the individual citizens and businesses who recognized a potential threat and took it upon themselves to extricate themselves from harm. Perhaps if people had this mindset back on September 11th, the loss of life would have been lessened dramatically.
Despite the gross negligence of officials, I applaud the individual citizens and businesses who recognized a potential threat and took it upon themselves to extricate themselves from harm. Perhaps if people had this mindset back on September 11th, the loss of life would have been lessened dramatically.
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