The Manhattan Bridge has subway rail service on it in addition to car and truck traffic.
Posted on 05/06/2005 7:27:17 AM PDT by FairOpinion
The Manhattan Bridge was shut down in both directions this morning as authorities investigated a suspicious package on the bridge's subway tracks.
According to police, the bridge was closed at around nine o'clock this morning.
The package, described as a knapsack, was left on the subway tracks.
Traffic was stopped in both directions, as was train service across the bridge.
(Excerpt) Read more at abclocal.go.com ...
I haven't seen any updates, but they must think it could be serious, or the police would have just walked over and picked up the knapsack and kept the bridge open.
Remember, just the other day, they got the guy, who was on the terrorist list, and he was a painter at one of the other NY bridges.
I hope it will all turn out to be nothing, but they don't shut down the bridge for nothing.
UPDATE from CNBC just now: Upper deck is partially reopened. NYPD on the scene
Oh you've got to be kidding me..................
Thanks for the update...you are correct.
Knapsack on train track...purposely put there obviously.
I remember the news report of the recent arrest along with these others:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/006028.php Arrest of Mahdi Bray
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/006037.php Muslim U.S.
soldier arrested for deserting...anti-American notes in backpack
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=15749&only=yes Arrest of Nehrn Ali Rahal - Dearborn, Michigan ties to Hezbollah...
And so many, many more....
Fingers crossed that this is just a precaution.
A truckload of explosives would about just scratch the paint on a major bridge...
yeah ,...it'll turn out to be fine , a fine test , a dry run or perhaps nothing; there's an ebb and flow to the tension crackling in mass transit , the last few weeks are OK , maybe its the cool temps
ping
Dry runs and the enemy "playing with us"....
The train bombings in Spain...wasn't that a knapsack scenario?
Another interesting article:
Al Qaeda’s New York
The terrorists are still obsessed with the city—which is why the NYPD is trying to learn to think like terrorists.
http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/features/11896/index.html
“We know we’re at the top of the Al Qaeda hit list,” says Police Commissioner Ray Kelly in his trademark thirties-inflected copspeak. “The bombings in 1993 and 2001 and the landmarks plot showed that they came back here and would want to come back here.”
Understanding the where is paramount. Al Qaeda is sentimental, which is to say its planners and strategists follow their hearts. It keeps them consistent. This is what Kelly means when he notes that for the past fifteen years, they have been announcing that they will attack—and then attacking—New York.
The density and wattage of the human-target grid here—Shea on a summer night, JFK at Thanksgiving, Macy’s on a Saturday, Times Square just about any time—make the city itself a meta-target and raise the value of each individual target in it. According to Osama’s medieval worldview, more dead Crusaders and Jews means more dead Crusaders and Jews, so that any place attacked in New York has intrinsic value, but it doesn’t get at the likelihood of what might be next.
“What turns a thing into a target?” says Brian Michael Jenkins, Rand Corporation terror expert. “First, high symbolic value. Then, what do they want to accomplish with their home audience? Operations are as much for display—to attract recruits, financial support, and to establish credentials—as they are intended to hurt us. They’re corporate communications.”
yeah , but not out in the open ,...we eyeball each other on the subway cars , I try to be near the door leading from car to car , some are locked now , they never were on the old trains
True, but unfortunately a bagful of explosives on the tracks would wreak major havoc on a passing train.
Ping
ping
Depends. If just sitting on the bridge, that's true. But if it was C-4 or Semtex and was properly applied to the bridge supports, even a large backpack/napsack full could bring down a bridge.
Then of course their is the possibility that the package was not (mostly) explosive, but something like Sarin or worse some biological agent. Although in that case an open brige might not be the optimal location.
Probably just some kid's school books.
The Manhattan Bridge has subway rail service on it in addition to car and truck traffic.
Check out Engineers of Dreams: Great Bridge Builders and the Spanning of America by Henry Petroski. Great book.
UPDATE:
Bridge Reopens.
Manhattan Bridge reopens after NY security alert
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=8412146
NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York police briefly closed the Manhattan Bridge on Friday while they investigated a suspicious package but the bridge was later reopened to traffic, a police spokeswoman said.
Speaking during a regular weekly radio address on WABC, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he was told the bag that sparked the alert contained clothes.
Subway trains and road traffic normally use the bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn, and both were delayed as a result of the closing.
The alert came the day after two makeshift grenades exploded outside a midtown building housing the British consulate and other foreign offices, renewing fears about security in the city in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
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