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TRANSACTIONS NEWSLETTER ONLINE

October 2001

Crisis Knows No Boundaries

The September 11 terrorist attack on New York and Washington, D.C., that shocked the nation and the world hit MTC with a special force. Our counterpart agency in New York, the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council, or NYMTC, had its offices on the 82nd floor of One World Trade Center, perilously close to the 90th-floor crash-impact location. Fortunately, even miraculously, most NYMTC staffers survived the attack, with some sustaining minor injuries. But three employees did not make it out of the doomed structure. To our sister agency and the victims' survivors -- and to the thousands of other affected families -- MTC extends its deepest sympathy.

This frightful disaster literally came out of the blue and shook a great city to its very core. Not only was there no warning, there was not even an awareness of the potential danger. And yet it serves to remind us that we in the Bay Area live with a very real and well-known threat -- not from the skies but from deep inside the earth. This is earthquake country, and we must be prepared for the "Big One," which seismologists tell us is not only possible but highly likely to strike within the next 30 years.

MTC takes earthquake preparedness seriously -- never more so than in the month of October, when 12 years ago the Loma Prieta quake struck the region, destroying the Cypress Freeway in Oakland and severing a section of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. This month we are again conducting our annual earthquake response training for MTC staff, so the agency can ably play the role of regional transportation information clearinghouse in the event of a large earthquake or other major emergency, natural or otherwise. Caltrans, Bay Area transit operators and other transportation partners also participate in this training.

Together, we are honing our ability to cope with an event that we can neither predict nor take steps to avoid. The unthinkable catastrophe that befell New York and our colleagues at the NYMTC sharpens our appreciation for just how important this task is.

-Steve Heminger
Executive Director, MTC

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