Police, fire units are out to ensure safe celebration

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2002 | 9:56 a.m.

Strip rules

The Strip will be closed from Russell Road to Sahara Avenue at some point between 7 and 9 p.m. The exact hour will depend on the size of the crowd, the weather and the amount of traffic.

Minors younger than 17 must be accompanied by an adult from 9 p.m. on.

Only plastic containers will be allowed on the Strip -- bottles and cans are prohibited.

New Year's Eve in Las Vegas may be a great party for hundreds of thousands of people from here and all points of the compass.

But for the Las Vegas Valley's police and fire and rescue personnel, a good Dec. 31 is one on which the partying does not get too out of hand and nobody gets hurt.

Of course, some craziness is expected.

"Whenever there's a lot of alcohol and people involved, it gets crazy," Bob Leinbach, spokesman for the Clark County Fire Department, said.

The department's New Year's plans include 23 two-man rescue teams on the Strip, two hazardous materials specialists and 25 fire inspectors.

"There'll be people going into pools, climbing on statues, destroying palm trees," said Jose Montoya, spokesman for Metro Police, which is assigning 1,200 officers to the event -- 950 on the Strip and 250 on Fremont Street.

The most tragic example of things "crazy" happened in 1999, when Tod Surmon, a young wrestler from Chicago, fell to his death after climbing a light pole on the Strip.

But mostly, when you talk to the people charged with keeping the New Year's party in Las Vegas as safe as possible, you realize how much experience the valley has in handling crowds.

"Big crowds are something we're used to here," Tim Szymanski, spokesman for the Las Vegas Fire Department, said. "For us, this is just like the Fourth of July, Cinco de Mayo or the rodeo."

Although he said it's better to be prepared for the worse, Szymanski said he often has time to watch TV at the emergency operation center set up on Dec. 31 in the fire department's headquarters downtown.

"Basically, it's been uneventful," he said of the five times he's been on New Year's Eve duty.

The Las Vegas Fire Department's plans for the night were not publicly released this year, he added -- a practice in place since the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

The terrorist attacks also changed one aspect of Metro's Dec. 31 operations, Montoya said. Metro has entered into an agreement with police departments from North Las Vegas and Henderson and the Nevada Highway Patrol in which those departments will be available to share duties involving police calls off the Strip.

"In addition, if anything major happens, the other departments will send their forces as soon as possible if necessary," Montoya said.

Police and highway patrol officers will also get a hand from Southwest Ambulance and American Medical Response. Southwest will have seven ambulances on the Strip, as will AMR, Pete Carlo, Southwest's clinical director, said.

At least one big casino company has also changed the way it plans for New Year's Eve as a result of the terrorist attacks.

MGM MIRAGE recently held a planning exercise with Clark County's Office of Emergency Management on responding to any bomb threats or power outages.

"Since the events of Sept. 11 we have continued to facilitate various exercises, with a stronger emphasis on terrorism and hazardous materials," Jim O'Brien, the county's emergency management manager, said.

Sandy Zennela, a spokeswoman for MGM MIRAGE, said that she hopes the worst-case scenarios involving people getting out of hand on New Year's Eve can be resolved by hailing them cabs or helping them find their rooms.

"We just want people to have a good time and be safe at the same time," she said.