News that an Ohio truck driver has confessed to plotting with Al Qaeda to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge will give all New Yorkers pause. While the idea Iyman Faris was pursuing — bringing down the bridge by cutting the supporting cables with blow torches — may seem almost comically inept, it’s a reminder of the terrorist organization’s determination to use low-tech and unconventional methods to wreak havoc upon this nation’s citizens. It underscores the fact that the terrorist threat has not passed, even if things have been quiet for the last year or so. The planes of September 11, 2001, after all, came out of a clear blue sky. The confession of Faris highlights the importance of reconsidering the location of New York’s emergency facilities, lest we see a repeat of what happened to the Office of Emergency Management headquarters at 7 World Trade Center. Perhaps the nerve center of our emergency response capabilities ought not be literally in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge.

After Mayor Giuliani established the OEM by executive order in 1996, he faced some criticism for setting up its headquarters, a $13 million crisis center — or “bunker” as it was referred to — across the street from the Twin Towers, which terrorists had attempted to bring down in 1993. Given the security at the building, however, it was defended as the most logical choice at the time. The FBI and the CIA also had space in the building, meaning security was already quite tight, with no trucks allowed near the building absent a search. The criticism came to seem prophetic, however, when the OEM headquarters, on the 23 rd floor of 7 World Trade Center, was destroyed by an uncontrolled fire started by debris.

It turned out that in the greatest disaster in the city’s history, the emergency control center was never used. It is only by good fortune that those manning OEM escaped from the building and were able to set up a makeshift replica of the bunker in short order. After moving temporarily to the Police Academy, where the first press conferences after the attacks were held, the OEM was able to set up shop within 72 hours at a pier off the West Side Highway near 51 st Street. That impromptu headquarters served, until December of 2001, as the brain of the city’s body politic. It coordinated the city, state, and federal response, as well as the cooperative efforts with non-profits and community groups and also housed a family assistance center.

It would seem to be too much to tempt fate again. Whereas no one was killed when the OEM’s headquarters were destroyed on September 11, 2001, the same might not be true if there were an attack on the Brooklyn Bridge. Given the headquarters’ location at the base of the bridge, on the Brooklyn side, the building could be destroyed instantaneously.

The plan to move the OEM to the former Red Cross headquarters in downtown Brooklyn is a reasonable alternative — at least better than what we are doing now. Councilman David Yassky of Brooklyn has said he worries the building is still too close to the bridge and is also near a federal courthouse. This holds little water. Others are confident that outside of a nuclear attack, the Red Cross building would hardly be affected by anything that happens on the bridge. If the Red Cross building does not turn out to be the best location in the long run, it at least provides a solution to a short-term problem.