Searches, tighter security disrupt East Coast traffic

© St. Petersburg Times,
published September 27, 2001

The intensive search by police, the Coast Guard and other law enforcement authorities for evidence of fresh terrorist activity is causing major disruptions and traffic jams in New York and elsewhere along the East Coast.

With federal law enforcement officials and terrorism experts warning that renewed attacks on the United States are likely, authorities Wednesday continued to tighten the flow of vehicle and shipping traffic at key points of entry, while stepping up security around municipal water supplies.

In New York, police meticulously searched cars entering and leaving Manhattan, causing huge traffic jams at bridges and tunnels. An FBI official said authorities were looking mainly for hazardous materials that could be used in an attack.

To try to reduce the traffic flow, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani announced that single-occupant vehicles will be barred from large sections of Manhattan starting today. Asked whether specific threats had been made against the city, Giuliani told reporters, "Sometimes they're credible, sometimes they're not."

Drivers going in and out of the ports in Newark and Elizabeth, N.J., are experiencing delays that are much longer than usual because authorities are examining all cargo, according to Johnson Sun, the dispatcher at Allway Corp., an import and export trucking company located in Kearny, N.J. Sun said it is taking drivers as much as four hours to get out of the ports.

"Right now, they (authorities) are checking just about every box coming in and going out of the ports. Customs agents are now breaking import and export seals, something they usually don't do, so they can visually look at what is inside," Sun said. "A lot of the drivers are frustrated."

Coast Guard officials have delayed the arrival into Boston Harbor of at least one giant tanker -- the Matthew -- which is registered in Trinidad and owned by Distrigas of Massachusetts -- out of fears the ship would be targeted for terrorist attack.

The tanker, which is about 6 to 8 miles offshore, is carrying 30-million gallons of liquid natural gas and is the biggest vessel that enters Boston Harbor. It generally offloads its supply and departs in 24 hours, according to a company official. The company plans to divert the ship to Lake Charles in Louisiana.

Meanwhile, the Coast Guard transferred up to 120 reservists from a Florida port security unit to Boston to conduct armed patrols of Boston Harbor. Patrols from regular stations have also been increased, according to a Coast Guard spokesperson.

Police helicopters can also be spotted flying over the Charles River, their searchlights scanning the river and waterfront rooftops at night, and Coast Guard speedboats with machine guns are patroling the harbor and cruise ship terminals along with state police marine unit vessels.

Federal, state and local officials throughout the country have imposed unprecedented security measures following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but nowhere have the traffic headaches been more intense than in New York.

Giuliani said only cars carrying two or more people would be allowed below 62nd Street between 6 a.m. and midnight. The restrictions affect some of the busiest entrances to the city, including the Lincoln Tunnel from New Jersey and four East River bridges linking Manhattan to Queens, Brooklyn and Long Island.

The searches, law enforcement sources suggested, were related to bomb threats and to the FBI's warning to the trucking industry to watch out for suspicious activity involving hazardous materials.

Charles Sturcken, chief of staff of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), said Wednesday that a variety of steps are being taken to better secure the city's vast water system, which supplies water to about 9-million people in the city, Westchester and Putnam counties, as well as a number of other nearby communities.

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