Disaster Preparedness

Remember the disaster drills held last week? A report from on-scene:

• One of the drills was supposed to be a CTA bombing/derailment w/chemical weapons discharge, I think along the Brown line. Now, this thing has been in the planning for over a year, but someone must not have run it past the stuttering prick, because he apparently found out about it when the press releases came out and he went ape shit. Flat out REFUSED to allow the National Guard to come into his city in uniform, or with weapons. The Guard CBRN units (that handle chemical biological & nuclear incidents) were told if they wanted to go observe the exercise, they had to do so in civlian attire.
  
  SO there ya go: your safety jepordized because Daley doesn't want soldiers in the City. Never mind that the drills were designed to prepare us for the worst and save lives. Someone might have seen a soldier and thought they were called to quell the 4 most violent districts in America or something. And we can't have that!

Public safety - Shortshanks style!

Not only won't Daley have a necessary component of first responders trained, now the citizens he's supposed with serving are nothing more than canaries along with the Police Department. Seems like it's going to be every man, woman and child for themselves.

UPDATE: In light of this story last night, how stupid does Shortshanks look in regard to public safety?

• Chicago firefighters extinguished a track fire in the Red Line subway north of the Chicago Avenue station this afternoon, officials said. At least 19 people were taken to area hospitals, five of them seriously injured, a Fire Department spokesman said.

  Five people were being taken to area hospitals in serious-to-critical condition; three were taken in fair-to-serious condition; and 11 were transported in fair-to-good condition, according to Fire Department spokesman [...].

  The victims were being treated for smoke inhalation at hospitals including Northwestern Memorial and Stroger Hospital of Cook County, [...]. All of those who were seriously injured were adults,...

That was just a track fire - 19 hospitalized, up to 5 critical.

Now imagine that was a bomb or a gas canister and you're working TO-SPOT with little-to-no disaster preparedness training.