Times Square New Year's Eve Event Isn't the Only of Event That You Guys Have

Speaker 1: 00:01 Welcome to "Prep Talk," the emergency management podcast. Find out what you need to know about preparedness, get all the latest tips from experts in the field and learn what to do before the next disaster strikes. From the Emergency Management Department in the city that never sleeps, here are your hosts, Omar Bourne and Allison Pennisi. Omar Bourne: 00:26 Hello everyone. Thank you for listening. I'm Omar Bourne. Allison Pennisi: 00:29 And I'm Allison Pennisi and you are our listeners and as always we thank you for joining us. We want you to come back as often as you can, so feel free to listen to Prep Talk on your favorite podcast provider. You can also follow us on social media, on our Twitter @nycemergencymgt, Facebook, Instagram, and much more. Omar Bourne: 00:48 Allison, 2020 is just days away and there is no other place to ring in the new year like New York City. Allison Pennisi: 00:57 That's right, Omar. Every year as the clock nears midnight on December 31st, the eyes of the world turn to the crossroads of the world, New York City. As we celebrate the new year, have you ever wondered who was responsible for this dazzling event in New York City? Omar Bourne: 01:12 Oh, we have the answer for you, but you know we got to tease it before we dive in. It is time for the Situation Report, the latest news in the emergency management field. Speaker 4: 01:27 Here's your "Prep Talk" Situation Report. Allison Pennisi: 01:31 All right. It's the situation report. Let's get started. The City of New Orleans recently was hit with a cyber attack. Phishing attempts and suspicious activity were detected on the City's network. The New Orleans Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness said in a series of tweets that about six hours after technician investigators detected what they called a cybersecurity incident, the city's Information Technology Department began powering down servers and city computers as a precaution. New Orleans mayor, LaToya Cantrell, declared a state of emergency for the city and said that while Ransomware was detected, no ransom has been demanded in the cyber attack. Omar Bourne: 02:09 Thank you, Allison. Another story for you, now the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, announced that it has enhanced the wireless emergency alerts. Those are the loud tones that you receive on your mobile phones before an emergency. Some of the improvements that have been made include geographic accuracy. Local officials can now send messages to a specific affected area without reaching unaffected communities. You can also now send longer messages. Officials can now send messages with 360 characters. That has increased from what used to be 90 characters, and messages are also now available in Spanish. Omar Bourne: 02:56 Now, the expansion also includes a class of alerts called public safety messages for officials to convey recommendations for saving lives or property, such as the location of emergency shelters after a disaster. For more information about wireless emergency alerts, or WEAs, as we like to call them, you can visit fcc.gov. These improvements are going to be important for emergency managers to warn and protect the public. We are happy that those are in place. Allison Pennisi: 03:29 Absolutely. Thanks Omar. If you're looking to make a New Year's resolution to be prepared in 2020, you're in luck. New York City Emergency Management has released its annual Resolve to Be Ready calendar. Now, it's filled with regular reminders, broken out into small, simple steps, and the calendar can help you work preparedness into your schedule throughout the year. You can check out all the tips by visiting NYC.gov/emergencymanagement. And that is the Situation Report. Still to come, we will be talking with Tom Harris from the Times Square Alliance, the organization in charge of the New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square, and we will also chat with Kevin Clark, from New York City Emergency Management about the interagency coordination associated with this event. But first, here's a public service announcement from New York City Emergency Management and the Ad Council. Speaker 5: 04:17 Your daughter doesn't want to talk about why her room is a horrible mess. Your son doesn't want to talk about why he's wearing mismatching socks. Your spouse doesn't want to talk about their bad haircut. Families don't have to talk about everything, but they should talk to plan for an emergency. Pack basic supplies in a Go Bag. Water, canned food, flashlights, batteries, medical supplies, IDs and some cash. Talk about where you'll meet in case you lose one another, and of course, don't forget to pack the dog treats. Talk to your family and make an emergency plan. Go to NYC.gov/readyny, or call 311 to make your family's emergency plan. Brought to you by New York City Emergency Management and the Ad Council. Speaker 4: 05:18 You are listening to "Prep Talk," the emergency management podcast. Omar Bourne: 05:23 You are listening to "Prep Talk" and we are back. Joining us for this episode are Tom Harris, senior vice president for the Times Square Alliance and Kevin Clark, operations manager at New York City Emergency Management. Gentlemen, thank you for joining us. Kevin Clark: 05:41 Thanks for having us. Tom Harris: 05:42 Thanks, Omar. Allison Pennisi: 05:43 Let's get right into it. Tom, how did the Times Square Alliance gets started? Tom Harris: 05:46 The Times Square Alliance was started in 1992. It was formed by a group of property owners and theater owners with the mission of making Times Square clean, safe and fun. And today we exist to improve and promote Times Square. Omar Bourne: 06:01 Let's talk a little bit about the massive spectacular event that is New Year's Eve. What goes into those plans, and when does that planning begin? Kevin Clark: 06:13 Well, we plan ahead of time for all of our events and I think for this current event, we started back in early December, with probably four meetings with other city agencies. We work very closely with the NYPD, who is the incident commander, and in this event, that's shared responsibilities with TSA, the Times Square Alliance. There's a partnership, there to begin with, that is also supported by multiple agencies. There's nearly 15 other agencies that are involved at the state and federal level and local level. We work with all of those agencies on a regular basis, and for an event, it means we ramp up what we normally do on a daily basis. We're bringing additional staff and resources into the event planning for that. We'll have staff at the NYP joint operations center for the day, and all of that is to bring coordination and fulfill our role as a coordinating element for the incident commander for events and for emergency response. Tom Harris: 07:10 The Alliance has a great team of talented events, and we also have strong partnership with One Times Square and Countdown Entertainment. We work closely with the Mayor's Office of Citywide Events with the emergency management, Kevin and his team, the NYPD, the Department of Sanitation, the Department of Transportation. We've already started to make changes for 2021. In short, we're working on two New Year's Eves at once. We always strive to make it a better experience for the people who come to Times Square and the billion people who watch it worldwide. Allison Pennisi: 07:45 We've talked about this behind the scenes coordination between the Times Square Alliance, with City agencies and different partners. The Times Square Alliance also works closely with the NYPD to ensure there is a robust security plan in place. Can you talk to our listeners about what those steps look like? Tom Harris: 08:03 Sure. Events like this are always a high security concern, and safety always comes first. It's important to understand that this is a live television event in front of a live audience on a work day in the middle of Times Square, where offices and businesses and Broadway is open. Planning and coordination are the only way that we could be successful. We have regular meetings with the New York City Police Department, with Emergency Management, and we look to communicate with our businesses and our stakeholders to make sure that they know what's going on, that they can have their own plans and they can communicate that to their visitors and to their patrons who come. The different businesses have communication plans and they get that word out to them. They have direct communication with us throughout the night, and we have direct communication with the incident command post of the NYPD. Omar Bourne: 08:58 And you mentioned that you're really planning for two events in one year. When we had Macy's on a couple of episodes ago, they said the same thing. They're planning the Thanksgiving Parade, not only for the year, but for the upcoming year. There's a lot that goes into the planning of these massive, spectacular, special events that people might not see. The Times Square New Year's Eve event isn't the only of event that you guys have.

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