Officials at the FBI’s New York field office – the first line of defense in preventing another terrorist attack – got so spooked by the threat of bad weather that they declared a “snow day” Monday, reports the New York Post. Millions of other New Yorkers with jobs unrelated to national security managed to trudge through the snow. Nearly 2,000 agents and support staff were told not to bother showing up for work. The downtown field office, one of the FBI’s largest, houses 1,100 agents and 800 support staff, and is home for many of the nation’s top counterterrorism experts.
FBI spokesman James Margolin confirmed “a large percentage of our personnel” were told not to come to the office Monday. He wasn’t sure of the exact number because he, too, stayed home. ssential staff were on hand, manning the operations center, and answering calls on the switchboard, he said. “Criminals don’t take snow days and neither should crime fighters,” commented City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr.