Although State College emergency personnel have not been called to assist after the terrorist attacks in New York, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania, local volunteers are ready to go at a moment's notice.

At both the Alpha Fire and Ambulance companies, lists of personnel have been compiled who are willing to travel to New York should the situation warrant it.

After the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, there was an initial rush of "freelance" emergency personnel, said Alpha Community Ambulance Services Administrative Supervisor Kent Knable.

These men and women with emergency experience stopped what they had been doing and rushed to New York to assist in the rescue efforts.

Because of the amount of people traveling to New York to help, volunteers are being turned away.

"They ended up having to secure the place," said Alpha Fire Company Fire Administrator Walt Wise.

Those in charge at the scene in New York currently are asking for only people with specific skills to assist in the recovery efforts, Knable said.

Members of the Alpha Community Ambulance Inc., 805 S. Atherton Street, and Alpha Fire Company, 400 W. Beaver Ave., signed up with the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) to go to New York if more volunteers were needed.

At the moment, PEMA has not needed to pull people from the list of volunteers to assist.

"There are about 7,500 volunteers from Pennsylvania signed up to go," said Knable.

"This number is more than enough should New York require additional assistance in the near future, he said.

Because of this rush of emergency personnel, PEMA is asking media organizations to stop reporting volunteer hotlines.

"PEMA requests that news organizations discontinue broadcasting and publishing national and state telephone numbers for volunteers," an announcement on the PEMA Web site said.

Even though there are enough emergency personnel on the scene already, that does not change the fact that others are ready to help.

This is why local firefighters are offering their services in New York City, should they be required.

"If they need more firefighters there are many across the state ready to go," Wise said.

In the days since the attack, some more zealous volunteers have simply driven themselves to the scene to help.

PEMA discourages these "freelance" emergency personnel from traveling to New York. Additional emergency personnel at the scene might actually do more harm than good, Wise said.