NY Transit considered floodgates to combat underwater attacks

Sep 5, 2006 3:22 PM

New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority has considered putting floodgates in subway tunnels to contain the floods that an explosion in an underwater tube might unleash, the New York Daily News reports.
If a blast ruptured a tunnel wall, floodgates could be slammed shut in a bid to stem a deluge that otherwise might roar through the system, the newspaper reports, citing confidential documents.
"A ... critical objective is to limit the spread of water into connecting tunnels, thus minimizing the extent to which the event would impact on a wider range of locations," according to the 2005 report.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has 14 underwater subway tunnels, and more than two dozen lines and shuttles that form a giant, interconnected maze.
MTA officials would not discuss the agency's tunnel defenses in detail. But Amtrak said it recently put back into action old floodgates in its six tunnels that lead to Penn Station. The barricades had been neglected and didn't function until Amtrak completed $9 million in repairs and upgrades this year, Amtrak spokesman Cliff Black said.
The tunnels - under the East and Hudson rivers - are used by Amtrak, NJTransit and the Long Island Rail Road.
Lewis Schiliro, the MTA's director of interagency preparedness, said "hardening our tunnels" has been a top priority, getting a majority of the $659 million in capital funds set aside for the first phase of the agency's core anti-terror plan.
"To the extent that we can make the tunnels more secure, both structurally and from an evacuation standpoint, we've gone ahead and done that, or are in the process of doing that," he said. "We're not going to have a lack of imagination or a lack of concern cause additional risk to the riding public."

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