Friday, December 22, 2006

NY Times Report: PATH Tunnels Vulnerable

A carry-on bomb could flood portions of commuter train tunnels between New York and New Jersey in a matter of hours, The New York Times reported.

The newspaper said that was the worst-case scenario in a draft of a new analysis that suggests the PATH rail system is more vulnerable than had been thought.

A government official gave the newspaper a draft summary of the analysis, The Times said. Characterized as preliminary and continuing, the analysis was based on work by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y.

The draft report showed that the PATH system's four tunnels, which run between New York City and New Jersey, are more fragile than they were said to be in an assessment this spring. It suggests that a bomb small enough to be carried on a train could blow big enough holes to allow 1.2 million gallons of water per minute to gush into a tunnel, flooding parts of the system within hours, the newspaper said.

A spokesman for the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, which runs the PATH system, defended its safety.
"If we believed in any way that passengers were in danger, we'd close the system,'' spokesman Marc La Vorgna said. "That would happen immediately.''

He would not answer specific questions about the analysis, according to the newspaper. But he said Port Authority police recently upped patrols and bag searches in the PATH system, and the agency's board voted last week to spend $180 million to boost security on the rail line.

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