May 19, 2004 – At the 9/11 commission hearings, Mayor Rudy Giuliani says that FEMA and hundreds of other state and federal government officials were going to have a biochemical attack drill in NYC on Sept. 12 conducted by the NYC Office of Emergency Management.

"MR. RUDOLPH W. GIULIANI: We made the decision to use the police academy because we didn’t want to leave this island, we didn’t want to leave Manhattan. We thought it would be a terrible statement if city government left the island of Manhattan. But then we realized pretty shortly that the police academy was too small, and we selected Pier 92 as our command center. And the reason Pier 92 was selected as the command center was because on the next day, on September 12th, Pier 92 was going to have a drill. It had hundreds of people here, from FEMA, from the federal government, from the state, from the State Emergency Management Office, and they were getting ready for a drill for biochemical attack. So that was going to be the place they were going to have the drill. The equipment was already there so we were able to establish a command center there within three days that was two-and-a-half to three times bigger than the command center that we had lost at 7 World Trade Center. And it was from there that the rest of the search and rescue effort was completed." – 9/11 Commission (05/19/04)

(See also:  September 10, 2001 – The Massachusetts Urban Search and Rescue Task Force arrives late in the evening in NYC and goes into action at the WTC the following morning on 9/11; September 12, 2001 – FEMA and hundreds of other state and federal government officials were scheduled to participate in a biochemical attack drill called "Operation TRIPOD" in New York City.;  May 22, 2004 – The New York City Office of Emergency Management conducts  "Operation TRIPOD".)