NEW YORK (AP) -- Police, local hospitals and other agencies held a field exercise that tested their readiness to respond to a weapons of mass destruction attack on New York.
In the five-hour exercise Sunday, titled Operation Winter Sun, authorities responded to a 911 call in which ``patients'' simulated the effects of a chemical, biological or radiological attack. They were treated and decontaminated at a site in Brooklyn much as they would be in an actual attack.
At a news conference, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the drill was a good way of showing ``how responders, including local hospitals, deal with a terrorist threat while minimizing risks to themselves and others.''
Terrorism drills were held over several days last week in Seattle and Chicago. They included a simulated detonation of a radioactive ``dirty bomb'' and a mock plague.
Operation Winter Sun was administered by the city's Office of Emergency Management and involved the federal Department of Homeland Security as well as the city's police, fire and health departments, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the regional hospital association.
