Newly released audio tapes show how New Jersey police and 911 personnel fielded hundreds of desperate calls from residents during the Bridgegate traffic chaos that has embroiled the administration of Gov. Chris Christie.
“The George Washington Bridge is totally gridlocked,” a dispatcher is heard saying just after 9 a.m. on Sept. 9, 2013, the first of four days of closed lanes.
Minutes earlier, a caller said a 4-year-old had disappeared from school. Police put out a description of the child and what he was wearing and added a warning: “Fort Lee traffic is a nightmare.”
The 28 hours of tapes released Friday by the Fort Lee municipal clerk appeared to confirm earlier reports that the massive traffic jams did not cause any deaths or seriously compromise anyone’s medical care. The missing child was found safe later that morning.
But the tapes showed, for example, how during the height of the Sept. 10 rush hour, a woman called 911 several times to report a medical emergency.
After waiting in vain for eight minutes she called back. “It’s an emergency and they’re still not here!” she said.
State legislators and a federal prosecutor are investigating charges that key aides and allies of Gov. Chris Christie orchestrated the lane closings to punish the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee.
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