Senator Charles Schumer toured Penn Station with Homeland Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson yesterday, as part of the senator's efforts for more funding to bring the tunnels up to anti-terrorist speed. Newsday reports that "$77 million of an original $100 million allocated for the project has been spent and another $350 million will be required." The improvements would go towards ventilation systems, a fire standpipe network and escape routes in the miles-long tunnels. Newsday also offers Schumer's worst case scenario for Penn Station:
Schumer envisioned a scenario in which a terrorist explosion in one of the tunnels could fill it with smoke and confusion, killing or injuring thousands of people unable to flee and perhaps even blowing back into the midtown Manhattan station itself.
Sigh, thanks, Newsday, for putting it in print. There have been bomb scares at Penn Station.
