Red Alert in NYC?

[nystate]

Excerpts from an AP article found at washingtonpost.com-

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32137-2004Aug1.html

Ridge said it would be up to New York City officials to decide whether to move to the highest level, red. The city has remained on orange since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Maybe this is what the 4:00 pm news conference is about...?

"This is not the usual chatter. This is multiple sources that involve extraordinary detail," Ridge said.

The government provided a wealth of detail that it had picked up in the past 36 hours, but a senior intelligence official described it only on condition of anonymity. The official described "excruciating detail" and meticulous planning "indicative of al-Qaida."

The official said the intelligence included security in and around these buildings; the flow of pedestrians; the best places for reconnaissance; how to make contact with employees who work in the buildings; the construction of the buildings; traffic patterns; locations of hospitals and police departments; and which days of the week present less security at these buildings.

To illustrate the level of detail obtained, the official cited these examples: midweek pedestrian traffic of 14 people per minute on each side of the street for a total of 28 people; that some explosives might not be hot enough to melt steel; and that the construction of some buildings might prevent them from falling down.

The official said he had not seen such extraordinary detail in his 24 years in intelligence work.

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I guess we'll see in an hour what NYC decides to do...