By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
BATTERY PARK CITY — The Battery Park City Community Emergency Response Team met early Saturday morning to hold their first terror evacuation drill since 9/11.
The drill was designed to practice emergency response to an attack that used either explosives or chemical weapons.
"You can never prepare too much," said Hank Wisner, deputy chief of the Battery Park City CERT.
Wisner led about 100 CERT members in the drill, starting at 7 a.m. in southern Battery Park City. The local residents, who have all received formal training, listened to the scenario and then broke into teams — search and rescue, animal search and rescue, medical triage, traffic control, maritime evacuation and more — to focus on minimizing chaos and saving lives.
The triage team set up in the new Merchants River House restaurant, where mock patients flooded in, complaining of heart attacks, broken bones, asthma and shock. Some of the patients simulated a language barrier by pretending not to speak English.
The maritime team worked with the Coast Guard to organize boats for the evacuation and sent one vessel of volunteers, including a large dog, all the way to Liberty Harbor in New Jersey.
"We were surprised by how few mistakes were made," Wisner said. "It just went like clockwork."
Still, Wisner said it's hard to predict what would happen in the event of a real disaster.
"In every event with mass casualties, there's always going to be chaos," Wisner said. "It never goes according to plan."
The CERT's role is to supplement the city's first responders, keeping order until they arrive and then helping them control the situation. Battery Park City's CERT was the first in the city, founded shortly after 9/11.
