Constant alert is the new norm post 9/11

Authorities here believe a serious attack on the 24-hour subway system with more than 400 stations, would potentially cripple the city in ways worse than the Sept. 11 attack.

“It's really a potentially very vulnerable environment — one that you can't totally protect,” said William Bratton, a Kroll security firm executive who's headed New York and Los Angeles police departments and was chief of the New York City transit. “That's the reality of it ... It's a unique challenge.”

The counterterror arsenal includes more than 30 bomb-sniffing dogs; silent alarms and motion detectors intended to prevent tampering with ventilation systems to make a chemical or biological attack more lethal; and a vast system of security cameras wired with live feeds from Penn Station, Grand Central Terminal and Herald Square.

More new normal: Random bag checks — once challenged in court as a civil rights violation — are done tens of thousands of times each year in the subways with barely any complaints. The department uses high-tech detection devices to screen riders for peroxides or nitrates common in homemade explosives, sometimes with the help of agents on loan from the U.S. Transportation Safety Administration (TSA).

The security strategy also includes regular inspections of tunnels under the East River, and sending officers periodically onto subway cars, asking passengers to beware of suspicious package. The roving teams can calm commuters, discourage would-be attacks or disrupt plots already set in motion, police say.

Police rely on counterterrorism drills to stay sharp, said Shanley. One exercise involves having an undercover officer with a mock device, stashed in a backpack and emitting gamma rays, slip into the subway to test the ability to detect and neutralize a real radioactive threat.

Above ground, NYPD analysts constantly mine for intelligence about potential plots that can dictate how it deploys forces. The department has dispatched detectives to Moscow, Madrid, London and Mumbai, India, to see what lessons can be learned from overseas terror attacks.

Such heightened security in subways has become second-nature in New York, though fears persist.

At Grand Central Terminal last week, 54-year-old consultant Robin Gant said the threat of terrorism still weighs on her 10 years after the Sept. 11 attacks.

“I look at people and who's to judge? You just never know who might be the one,” she said. “No matter how safe you feel, you're always on yellow alert.”

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