MYFOXNY.COM EXCLUSIVE -- People in charge of keeping an eye on a top terrorist target in the New York area can't seem to get even the basics right. Until Fox 5 started asking questions, some pretty big things were sliding through the cracks.
Fox 5 cameras caught a tanker truck filled with more than 8,000 gallons of fuel oil going through the Lincoln Tunnel. But for safety and homeland security reasons, all fuel oil trucks are supposed to be turned away. The Lincoln Tunnel is considered one of the top terror targets in the world. There has been concern for years that terrorists could rig a fuel truck and turn it into a deadly bomb to set off inside the tunnel.
We also obtained pictures of a Hess tanker truck carrying thousands of gallons of fuel oil. It wasn't supposed to be in the tunnel either. The trucks both have warning signs that mean they contain a "combustible liquid." On the way the trucks passed Port Authority Police and lots of signs that say things like "Hazardous materials are restricted... Inquire of police at check point." But when Fox 5 stopped at a check point, no one was in the booth and no one was in the police car.
Way before the September 11th, 2001, attacks, just for safety reasons fuel oil trucks were supposedly banned from the tunnel. But for years--for reasons still not clear--the trucks were given a free pass.
We caught up with the man who runs Summit Transport, which owns one of the fuel trucks we saw going though the tunnel.
"I've been doing it for 30 years," said Ken Rosen, of Summit.
He said the Port Authority has always let his trucks go through. The confusion seems to be over the safety of fuel oil, stuff that people use to heat their homes, versus gasoline. Gasoline explodes and catches fire easier than fuel oil. And that's one reason people think the Port Authority has looked the other way.
"If you take a cigarette or a match and throw it into it, it doesn't go up in flames -- it takes a lot more," Rosen says. "Even when you heat a homeowner's house you need a 10,000-volt transformer sparking away and after you've atomized that oil into a fine spray, that's when it ignites into a flame. It's a very safe product."
But fuel oil is not a safe product if a terrorist rigs a truck, even a fuel oil truck, to cause a major damage. Experts have told Fox 5 that fires inside a tunnel are hard to get to, hard to put out, and could cause structural damage to the tunnel. Those experts also said that once ignited, fuel oil can be more dangerous then gasoline, and that jet fuel, which ultimately brought down the Twin Towers, has the same basic properties as fuel oil.
In March 2009, a new booklet went out making it clear, but it wasn't until last week -- not until Fox 5 started asking questions -- that the Port Authority started taking action.
We were tipped off about the problem by a concerned trucker who took pictures of what he thought was a Hess gasoline truck in the tunnel. The mud flaps said "Buy Hess gasoline." The trucker sent the pictures to Fox 5. We sent them to the Port Authority and Hess.
Turns out the truck was not carrying gasoline, but fuel oil. Both Hess and the Port Authority admit the trucks should not have been allowed in the tunnel. And as the result of our investigation, a Port Authority memo was sent out on February 1 to all Lincoln Tunnel personnel. It reads: "Please let this serve as reminder that all vehicles, notably tanker trucks, placarded for any combustible and/or flammable liquids are not allowed passage through the tunnel eastbound as well as westbound."
The Port Authority insists that going back to last year, all personnel in the field -- including cops -- should have been already aware about the restrictions.
Caught in the middle of all this confusion are fuel oil companies like the one of Ken Rosen, whose trucks are now been stopped by the Port Authority Police after being allowed though for decades. Rosen was stunned to hear that one of his trucks was turned around last week.
"I mean, it just drives up the cost of doing business in Manhattan," Rosen said.
For Rosen, it means instead of picking up fuel in Edgewater, N.J., and taking the Lincoln Tunnel to Manhattan, his trucks will now have to take the long way: the upper level of the George Washington Bridge, where gasoline and fuel trucks are allowed and where an accident or something more sinister can be dealt with easier and with less damage than if it came down in the tunnel.
The union that represents Port Authority police officers told Fox 5 that their members in the field have just been following orders and that they've warned the higher-ups about the dangers of allowing trucks with combustible liquids to pass through the tunnels. They have accused the same bosses in the past of ignoring security recommendations prior to 9/11 and the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
EmailThis
Print this story
View Story on a Single Page
