Few if any cities are so prepared as to respond that quick. The Feds sure aren’t. The Fire Department is probably the best for response and that’s the way it will be for the foreseeable future.
This is just plain negligent on Bloomberg’s part.
“The Media” should never, ever be considered a primary instrument of a municipal alerting system.
The counties surrounding DC all belong to the “National Capital Region Text Based Emergency Alert and Notification System”, which is based on the RoamSecure alerting system.
http://www.roamsecure.net/ncr.php
Each county’s emergency personnel update their own jurisdictional section of the system, and anyone (including citizens) in any county can subscribe to their and/or other jurisdiction’s alerts. Alerts are automatically sent to all subscribers via email, SMS, wireless, pager, etc., or a combination of those, and even to multiple accounts.
Also most of the counties surrounding DC have other dedicated alerting vehicles, such as an AM radio station (Arlington, 1700 AM), cable TV (Fairfax, 16), and emergency web sites.
Anyway, since I’ve had it AlertNet has sent alerts on road closures, traffic jams, weather advisories, electrical outages, and in one memorable case a road closure because the police were dealing with a felon barricaded inside a home near a main traffic route.
Anyway, it’s not difficult to fix NYC’s problem. They just need someone who will actually earn their salary and do it.