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Posted By	Discussion Topic: Shea serves as relief command center
PeterDragon	posted on 09-13-2001 @ 6:07 PM
O&A Board Regular Registered: Jan. 01	Shea serves as relief command center By Ian Browne MLB.com NEW YORK -- The massive parking lot that surrounds Shea Stadium has always been convenient for fans who attend Mets games. Easy access in, easy access out. However, its size and location came in handy for a far more meaningful reason the last couple of days. Following Tuesday's tragic terrorist attacks on Manhattan's World Trade Center, staging areas were needed for the massive number of rescue teams, which consisted of police, ambulance workers and firefighters. Shea Stadium's lot turned out to be what the city's rescue effort needed, both because of the size and the easy access to the highways that feed into Manhattan. "We've used Shea Stadium as a command center for fire, police and EMS," said Kevin McCarthy, the Director of Stadium Operations at Shea. "We had 1,000 uniformed people here yesterday. This was where they arrived, and they were dispatched (into Manhattan) in numbers." Ambulances were escorted by police to the city in droves both Tuesday and Wednesday, anywhere from 20 to 40 at a time. Many of the ambulances and firefighters were volunteer teams from hours outside of New York City. They came in bunches to contribute to the desperate cause. "Nobody truly knows what to expect, or what it's going to be like once we get to the scene," said Dwayne Gallt, a supervisor for a disaster response team that came in from Nelliston, N.Y., which is almost a four-hour drive from Shea Stadium. "They have stress teams here for us." With good reason. Sure, these people are trained to handle disaster. But nobody could have ever fathomed anything like this. "We do normal emergency medical stuff," said Gallt. "Hurricanes in Florida. We did an ice storm in Northern New York. But you just don't expect something like this." So this lot, which has served for so long as a place where fans gear up for a game, was all business Tuesday and Wednesday. Though Major League Baseball has been shut down at least until Friday, the New York Mets more than stepped up to the cause, working around the clock to open their home to rescue teams. "People on the Mets staff volunteered and worked through the night. We are currently setting up beds for workers and volunteers who were up all night," said McCarthy. "We have lobbies set up. We've opened up a lot of interior rooms, like the old Jets' locker room, so people can take breaks." Several of the city's coach buses were also dispatched to Shea, where they transported both firefighters and equipment, such as generators, stretchers, crowbars, and as one bus driver put it, "Whatever they needed to function." Shea was also serving as a place for people to volunteer clothes. "We are accepting donations," McCarthy said. "Firefighters need dry socks. Police are running that stuff into the city every 20 minutes or so." And in conjunction with Aramark, the stadium's official vendor, the Mets are making sure everyone is well fed. "The Mets and Aramark worked through the night supplying and cooking food, distributing water," McCarthy said. "Vendors donated cakes and water. We're having barbeques." The effort at Shea has been going on, according to McCarthy, "around the clock since 10 a.m.(Tuesday). It's ongoing, and continuing through today or however long. We're here for the duration." In the past, the size of Shea's lot -- which is owned by New York City -- has been used for various other non-sporting events. But nothing even remotely resembling this. "Shea is often used for a command center for staging, Presidential visits, things like that," McCarthy said. "We've had disaster drills in the past, but you can never prepare for something like this." Ian Browne is a regional writer for MLB.com based in New York. Sig pic removed temporarily as a sign of respect.

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