Gigantic Preparations

If New York City, a fat, river-marked target, is ever bombed, how will the city handle its casualties? Has any system been laid out against the day of attack?

Familiar with other phases of New York's well-publicized civilian defense scheme, many a citizen has asked such questions about the one missing but vital detail. Finally they got an answer. New York City's Commissioner of Hospitals Edward M. Bernecker revealed his gigantic preparations in a speech before a United Hospital Fund conference:

> Each of the city's 85 casualty hospitals has an emergency medical unit divided into teams, each consisting of a doctor, a nurse, two nurses' aides and two stretcher-bearers. Several hospitals have as many as 32 teams.

> In addition, a reserve group of 1,000 physicians, 3,600 graduate nurses, 1,200 nurses' aides and 2,200 stretcher-bearers trained by the Red Cross will report to the hospitals if disaster strikes.

> About 500 emergency casualty stations have been designated throughout the city.

> Enough medical supplies for 75,000 casualties have been collected in depots. Twenty-seven thousand units of blood plasma are being accumulated.

> About 2,000 beds are kept vacant in hospitals as provision against disaster.

How effective these preparations would be against the dreadful emergency, no one could tell. London also had elaborate schemes, arranged for the blitz of September 1940, found some of its most care fully considered plans too elaborate and impracticable under the disrupting test of high explosives and incendiaries. But New Yorkers could congratulate themselves on one important fact: New York City's plans had been made after careful study of the latest English system.

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