(The following article by John Valenti was posted on Newday.com on September 28.)
NEW YORK — How safe are the four East River tunnels used by the Long Island Rail Road to transport 220,000 commuters daily in and out of Penn Station?
Safer than they were four years ago, railroad officials said last night. But in the wake of an electrical fire that caused the cancellation of almost 100 trains yesterday and disrupted the evening rush hour for tens of thousands of commuters, not as safe as those tunnels could be – or should be – according to Long Island congressman Peter King.
“This should be a wake-up call for us,” King (R-Seaford) said. “We got off lucky this time. Next time, we could have thousands of people trapped in those tunnels when we have a fire – and we might not be so lucky.”
It was March 2001 at a hearing in Hempstead on the safety of those railroad tunnels that King called their renovation “a matter of life and death.”
That hearing, chaired by state Sens. Caesar Trunzo (R-Brentwood) and Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre), came on the heels of a report issued by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of the Inspector General that was critical of the safety standards in the then 90-year-old tunnels.
Those politicians were calling for $898 million in life- and fire-safety improvements.
Since 2001, Amtrak, which owns and maintains the seven tunnels into and out of Manhattan – including the four East River tunnels leased by the LIRR, has made more than $200 million in improvements to fire-fighting, lighting, communications and security systems in the tunnels, railroad officials said last night. The LIRR also has made more than $200 million in improvements, according to LIRR president James Dermody.
But most of the damage in yesterday’s fire occurred in the crossover passage between tunnels No. 1 and 2 at the so-called 1st Avenue shaft at 34th Street in Manhattan, a railroad source said last night.
That is the same location where Amtrak plans to build a new ventilation system and evacuation stairs for those tunnels between 2005-2009.
But the fact that there are no stairs there now raises concerns about how fast those tunnels can currently be evacuated in an emergency, such as last night’s fire, King said.
Last night, Dermody said: “We’re always concerned about the safety of these tunnels. A lot of improvements have been done in these tunnels. But there are still improvments that have to be done.”
He said the heat from the fire was “intense” – so intense, in fact, that the railroad was unable to use the current ventilation system for fear it could have “fanned the fire” and spread smoke from the fire into Penn Station.
Though a spokesman for Skelos last night said the state senator would not comment on the situation until more details about its cause were known, a spokesman for Trunzo, Chris Molluso, said: “I think a situation like this shows that it is not just terrorism that should be our concern when it comes to the safety of these tunnels. These improvements are also necessary for the everyday safety of hundreds of thousands of Long Island commuters.”
“Obviously,” King said, “it’s an antiquated system.”
The signals affected by the electrical fire are more than 20 years old, Dermody said.