Claims that Tom Kenny mistook the arrival date are refuted by the fact that the interview with Dan Rather was on Wed. Sept. 12 and he accounted for Monday night, Tuesday, and that day (Wednesday). "We arrived on late Monday night and went into action on Tuesday morning. And not until today did we get a full opportunity to work the entire site." Furthermore, former NYC mayor Giuliani testified to the 9/11 Commission: "... the reason Pier 92 was selected as a command center was that on the next day, on September 12, 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 the biochemical attack. So that was gonna 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, which 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."

"Operation Tripod bioterrorism exercise"

On September 12, 2001, there was due to take place the second part of an exercise known as Operation Tripod, set up to "test the plan to distribute antibiotics to the entire city population during a bioterrorism attack". Richard Sheirer, director of the New York City mayor's Office of Emergency Management (OEM), had hired "over 1,000 Police Academy cadets and Fire Department trainees to play terrified civilians afflicted with various medical conditions, allergies, and panic attacks." Various individuals were invited to watch, including Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, the police and fire commissioners, and representatives of the FBI and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Pier 92 was set up as a model distribution station where the "victims" of the mock attack who needed to receive antibiotics would be treated. The exercise was a follow-up to a previous training exercise in New York, called RED Ex, which took place on May 21, 2001. According to the MTI Report Saving City Lifelines: Lessons Learned in the 9-11 Terrorist Attacks, "September 11 was going to be a busy day at the OEM. Staff members arrived early to prepare for Operation Tripod."

When September 11, 2001, attacks began, Operation Tripod was immediately canceled as attention turned to the real ongoing emergency. Because Pier 92 had been set up ready for the exercise, OEM staff were able to move there and quickly convert it into a large emergency operations center when their original command center (in WTC Building 7) was evacuated and later destroyed. Thus, within 31 hours of the attacks, OEM had a functional facility able to manage the search and rescue effort, just four miles north-northwest of the WTC site. The exercise was later rescheduled and took place on May 22, 2002.