POLICE OFFICERS SWIFTLY SHOW INVENTIVENESS DURING CRISIS

No other large police force in the country had developed such
sophisticated antiterrorism strategies. None had trained as
extensively or received as much expert counsel on how to prepare for a
terrorist catastrophe.

In fact, the New York Police Department had spent heavily on
equipment, participated in mock disasters to test its readiness,
maintained a high-tech command center, and played a role in the
creation of the mayor's own $13 million emergency bunker in a downtown
high-rise.

But when two planes hijacked by terrorists crashed into the two towers
of the World Trade Center last Tuesday, causing the buildings to
collapse, the department's ability to carry out its
emergency-management plans was seriously compromised.

The bunker, at 7 World Trade Center, was damaged and soon fell along
with the rest of the building. The department's communications system
was damaged as well, and the ability of senior officials to stay in
touch was curtailed for much of the first day. To make matters worse,
at least two dozen officers, including some of the men who had been
trained most extensively in search and rescue operations, were lost in
the tragedy's first hour.

But in what police officials regard as a striking achievement in
improvisation and commitment, the department, often using tools no
more complex than pens and paper, has managed to recover quickly and
respond, not only to the trade center crisis, but also to the demands
of effectively policing the rest of the city.

"It's really a test for the entire department," Police Commissioner
Bernard Kerik said on Friday. "It's a test for the managers, it's a
test for the administrators and it's a test for the rank-and-file cops
and the first-line supervisors. And everybody is acting; they are far
surpassing what I would have imagined under the circumstances."

And circumstances were initially close to overwhelming. After the
towers collapsed, every phone went dead at Police Headquarters
downtown, the home of its own command center. Pager and cellular phone
service was completely lost for nearly 24 hours. E-mail and other
computer communications were also knocked out.

The loss of cellular phones and pagers increased the already heavy
flow of radio transmissions as department officials scrambled to
deploy more officers. "We made the best with what we had and we made
it work," Mr. Kerik said.

Jerome M. Hauer, who until last year ran the city's Office of
Emergency Management, said the improvisation was rooted in readiness.
"Our Police Department has been and is better prepared for any type of
incident than any department in the country, hands down," he said.

Within a few hours of the collapse, the department was calling in all
off-duty officers to work, and by day's end, it had switched from
8-hour to 12-hour shifts.

Tuesday afternoon the department, along with the Mayor's Office of
Emergency Management, opened a makeshift command center at the police
academy, and department technicians began running phone lines into a
few essential offices inside headquarters.

As more than 1,000 officers responded to the stricken area south of
14th Street, Mr. Kerik redeployed some 10,000 others -- narcotics and
precinct detectives and officers from the Organized Crime Control
Bureau, the Street Crime Unit and other special units -- to patrol
duties.With the additional help, Mr. Kerik said, the department has
had no problem patrolling the streets. Citywide, he said, crime was
down by 30 percent during the first days of the crisis.

He also said that the extraordinary public support the officers had
seen had energized the police at the moment when they needed it most.

"Now the entire city is out there cheering and clapping and sending
letters and just really showing their signs of support for the cops,"
Mr. Kerik said. "You know what that's doing for them? It's just
boosting and enhancing the morale, it's making it, as bad as it is, as
tragic as it is, so much better."