Images From the StoryEyewitness News Video (New York-WABC, January 27 , 2005) -- There are new problems tonight for the subway system - a major security breach, and a warning from retired track inspectors, who says that fire in the subway control room could happen again.
The investigator's Jim Hoffer is here with his exclusive report.
That shopping cart believed to be the source of the control room fire may have actually been one used by workers. Transit refutes that while still trying to figure out what exactly happened. Meanwhile, one worker we spoke to says none of this surprises him.
"This is what stops you and I from going on the tracks. A broken gate. You tell me. There's no sensors here, there's no monitors."
A recently retired track inspector says the fire that destroyed the Chamber Street signal room lays bare the striking vulnerability of the subway:
Dave Goellner, Former Track Inspector:"I hate to say it will happen again, but it will unless you do something about it."
The MTA insists it has made the system more secure by modernizing 158 of the 200 critical control rooms and equipped them with fire and intrusion alarms.
Lawrence Reuter, Transit Authority President: "So it gives us a better ability to react quicker to anything going on in those rooms."
The older chamber street control room had only an unguarded, but locked fire door protecting it from a blaze that the MTA earlier suggested was started by a homeless man with a shopping cart.
But several transit workers told us by phone that track crews often use shopping carts to haul supplies below.
Transit worker: "This is common practice, they've been using these shopping carts for years."
Today the transit president acknowledged that they are looking into whether workers left highly-flammable material near the control room.
Lawrence Reuter, Transit Authority President: "The reports are from people at the scene that actually went there and investigated the fire."
Transit worker: "It's definitely possible. A lot of supervisors will have guys bring machines or gas cans and sometimes maybe a guy will forget a gas can down there, you never know."
Some transit experts believe a dramatic drop in the number of police patrolling the subway leaves a large, open system even more exposed. We've learned that the number of officers in the subway has steadily declined for years. from a high of about 5,000 in 1995 to a current force of just over 2,000.
Francis O'Hare: "What happens as you move them from the subway system into the street you're losing that viable entity that will protect the public."
The MTA says it has $600 million targeted for counter-terrorism measures, including sensors and surveillance cameras for subway tunnels, but this project is still in the study and design phase.
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