Great 5 Borough Bike Ride

Peter A. Morici, Chief CERT Instructor, Battery Park City CERT, NY, South Beach Civic CERT, Gateway Cathedral CERT and Brooklyn South CERT (FEMA-trained units)
May 1, 2005

On May 1, 2005, the above four FEMA CERT teams were asked by the sponsors of Bike New York, the Great 5 Borough Bike Ride, to actively participate in their event.

Members of Battery Park City CERT assisted in NYC, Brooklyn and Queens, while the Brooklyn South CERT unit handled the security and crowd control at a Brooklyn stop-off point. The main two teams, Gateway Cathedral CERT and South Beach CERT, both Staten Island FEMA-trained units trained by Chief CERT Instructor Peter A. Morici, handled the final point where over 30,000 bike rider participants came off the Verrazano Narrows Bridge and made a sharp right turn into Fort Wadsworth, the last stopping place.

When the event was over, the sponsors of Bike New York advised Mr. Morici that this was the first time in the 28 years of the runs' history that there were no pile ups, traffic jams and everything ran like clockwork. They were permanently invited back next year and the following years to handle their Traffic Control. "This is one way to get the teams involved in large volume non-emergency events", stated Mr. Peter A. Morici.