Saturday, December 11, 1999

By ERNIE GARCIA
Herald & News

When members of the Hasbrouck Heights police and fire departments recently staged a mock collision between a freight train and a commuter-filled bus, Police Chief Michael Colaneri never expected that his department would draw on that training so soon.

"It wasn't exactly the same kind of accident, but whether it's a train wreck, a severe auto accident, or a structure fire, the principles are the same," Colaneri explained on Friday

He praised his staff for professionalism in circumstances that could have devolved into chaos given the various local, state and county agencies responding to Thursday night's plane crash.

Regular disaster training and a few lessons gleaned from Tropical Storm Floyd assisted Hasbrouck Heights' and neighboring Lodi's rescue efforts when a six-seat Beechcraft Baron 58 headed for Teterboro Airport plunged into a neighborhood on the small communities' Woodside Avenue border.

One man and two women were killed instantly, and a second man was taken to Hackensack University Medical Center, where he died later.

Colaneri said on Friday that the regular training his and adjacent municipal police forces get at the Bergen County Police Academy helped coordinate an effort involving nearly a dozen offices.

"It's basically a question of checking your ego at the door and working together," Colaneri said of the friction-free cooperation that enabled the Lodi Fire Department to swiftly extinguish crash flames as Hasbrouck Heights and Lodi police fanned out through the neighborhood to close roads and cordon off sensitive crash sites.

"I was down there within five minutes...and a command post was immediately set up so all the different county and state officials could discuss their plans," Colaneri said.

Adam Strobel, chief of staff for Bergen County Executive William "Pat" Schuber, said the effectiveness of county's office of emergency management, which sent representatives to the scene, has been galvanized by many recent crises.

"They've dealt this year with the drought, encephalitis, and Floyd. Plane crashes are just one of the many contingencies they're trained to address, including some I don't want to imagine."

In Trenton State Police spokesman Sgt. Al Della Fave said his agency's role at the crash site was limited to traffic and crash site security given local thoroughness.

"Our team was there, but the Hasbrouck Heights police had everything under control when we got there," Della Fave said.

Lodi police, who arrived first at the accident scene, credited training and the recent brush with Tropical Storm Floyd for improved crash management.

"It becomes second nature to you because you play these situations out in your mind," said Lodi acting Police Chief Dominick D'Onofrio, whose department has analyzed many of its emergency response procedures since the Sept. 16 500-year storm.

"We learned about radio communication and manpower scheduling. We're a small department, so we can't have all our men respond at once because it leaves the rest of the town unprotected," D'Onofrio said.

D'Onofrio added that his town's brush with Floyd revealed shortcomings in the department's emergency procedures but noted that living through such crises is the best training a police force can get.