The collapsed tunnel is a stand-in for the First Avenue vehicular tunnel near the United Nations in New York City. Members of a city emergency-response task force use airbags to gingerly raise a sideways car so they can rescue a trapped victim.

Nearby, rescuers undertake the delicate operation of searching through the pick-up-sticks debris pile of a collapsed house. They search for victims in the basement, in a void formed beneath fallen walls and broken beams.

The tunnel collapse is actually in an old underground maintenance garage at the Concord Hotel, once the jewel of the Catskill resorts, but now the perfect emergency training site for New York Task Force 1.

The tunnel is one of four earthquake scenarios, complete with 150-pound mannequin “victims,” set up here so NYC firefighters, police officers and medics can practice for actual disasters.

“They’re drilling for what they’re going to see when they actually deploy,” said Jarrod Bernstein, spokesman for the New York City Office of Emergency Management.

“It’s good. It gets the rust off and keeps the knives sharp.”

An earthquake might seem unlikely for New York, but it is possible. And, Bernstein explained, the city’s emergency task forces are also considered a federal asset in times of disaster. They’ve been deployed to disasters such as hurricanes and the Oklahoma City bombing.

The task force does disaster drills at the NYPD and FDNY training academies, but the varied terrain at the Concord provided them a chance to set up some very realistic exercises.

Although the Concord has been closed for years, the big buildings are still structurally sound. That and owner Louis Cappelli’s good will have made it a training playground for local and statewide fire services.

“It’s very difficult to find this kind of scenario anywhere,” said Joe Downey, one of the Task Force leaders from FDNY.

In a hotel tower, rescuers break through walls on the third floor to find victims in the elevator shafts, working around a hazardous material spill in the basement. At the old outdoor pool, rescuers crawl through a claustrophobic pump-house tunnel beneath the concrete deck, searching for more victims.

“Everybody is always focused on coastal flooding and hurricanes,” said Franco Barberio, a team leader from the NYPD. “We are trying to be one step ahead.”

ROL