Emergency Response Planning for New York City

Helping Major Cities Plan for Disaster Response and Recovery

The physical environment of a large city poses specific challenges when planning for disaster response.  Major issues include how to quickly protect the health of a large population, how to remediate homes and commercial buildings, and how to get essential transit systems and businesses up and running.  CSS’ staff worked EPA CMAD to develop an integrated framework for responding if a biological agent was released over a wide area in New York City. The framework provides technical and operational guidance that is scalable and can be applied to several types of scenarios. Our staff worked with six workgroups to help develop:

• Templates for Sampling and Analytical Plans (SAP) and Remedial Action Plans (RAP)
• A decision tree for decontamination options; and
• Guidance for affected homeowners and businesses on using private remediation contractors

We helped perform an engineering remediation analysis of a large building in New York City, then used the templates to prepare an SAP and RAP for that building. Similarly, we used the templates to develop an SAP and RAP for a subway system, including options for decontamination of subway stations and cars. The completed framework document serves as the template for other U.S. cities looking to creating city-specific response and recovery plans.

We submitted our deliverables on time and $100,000 under budget. EPA praised our work as “Another excellent example of scientific support.”