ongoing, coordination was in place, and some of the communications issues had already been addressed. Additionally, many of the roles and responsibilities for each level of city government were already known and practiced, which reduced uncertainty. All of these factors combined created the foundation for a more organized and unified response and recovery (Manzi, Powers, & Zetterlund, 2002).
City agencies were also sporadically training together, undertaking exercises, evaluating plans, and taking corrective action. While they were moving in the right direction, there were still identified and unidentified gaps that needed to be fixed. Among those gaps were an effective way to evaluate exercises, and the occasional agency that did not think they needed to be involved in these preparedness efforts (Manzi et al. 2002).
As is often the case, some agencies in the area did not play well with others, so there were some additional gaps already in the plans prior to the incident. It should also be noted that planning for a catastrophic event such as this had never been broached prior to the bombing. Even so, the preparedness efforts that had been addressed would play an important role in how, when, and where resources were deployed (ODCEM, n.d.).
As you read further, you will see how specific discipline responded and how seamlessly they integrated with other agencies. You will see how there was coordination and cooperation, and some of the outcomes from using the ICS method. While the use of an ICS method was not perfect, it did provide for a more integrated response.
2.4.2.1 At the Scene of the Explosion
The Oklahoma City Fire Department was one of the key players in preparedness prior to the bombing. They knew about, trained on, and used the ICS system, and they encouraged others within their city to do the same. A year prior to the bombing, senior staff and senior management from Oklahoma City government attended a weeklong (Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA] sponsored) training course on disaster management. This course helped to forge strong interpersonal relationships between city officials and the tabletop exercise that was the culmination of the course. This training helped to open the eyes of many city officials. Long before the bomb was ever detonated, the city determined that everyone in city government would need to be on the same page, and they would need to integrate resources in a disaster (Manzi et al. 2002). This led to training and exercises that helped pave the way for a more unified response.
At the very second that the explosion occurred, many of the senior staff for the Oklahoma City Fire Department were having a meeting. After hearing the explosion and seeing the debris cloud, Oklahoma City Fire Station No. 1 self‐deployed to the incident. Their response was initiated before the Oklahoma City Communications Center dispatched any units. While self‐deploying is typically frowned upon, this was not the only fire station that self‐deployed after hearing the explosion. Considering that Station No. 1 was only five blocks away from the Murrah Building, it was surmised that they probably arrived on scene in the first two minutes (ODCEM, n.d.).
The first arriving fire officer, a District Fire Chief, implemented the ICS system as soon as he arrived on scene. He immediately ordered that two triage areas be set up in strategic yet safe areas so that the influx of patients could be evaluated and prioritized for transport based on the severity of their injuries. Shortly after setting up ICS and triage areas, the Oklahoma City Fire Chief (the District Fire Chief's superior) arrived at the incident only moments later.
Upon arriving on scene, the Oklahoma City Fire Chief left his subordinate the District Chief in Command as the Incident Commander (IC). The Fire Chief supported the District Chief by performing intelligence gathering and reporting back to the District Chief. After observing the Murrah Building from all sides, the Oklahoma City Fire Chief made the suggestion to the Incident Commander (IC) that a Unified Command ([UC], discussed in detail in Chapter 7) be initiated. The initiation of a Unified Command (UC) would allow all responding agencies to provide direct input on the resources they possessed, the capabilities of their agency and personnel, other resources that were available, and any agency that was part of a Unified Command (UC) would have a seat at the proverbial table. It would also help to somewhat overcome communications barrier (Final Report, 1996).
After completing a quick evaluation of the damage to the area, the needs for initial response were reported to the Incident Commander (IC), and the Oklahoma City Fire Chief determined that all off‐duty personnel should be called in and that reserve apparatus should be pressed into service. He made that recommendation to the Incident Commander (IC), the Deputy Fire Chief. Additionally, he suggested organizing mutual aid resources from nearby cities to help backfill stations. In doing so, daily emergency calls could still be answered in a timely manner while the Oklahoma City Fire Department was still dealing with the major disaster at‐hand (Final Report, 1996).
Four minutes into the incident, the Incident Commander (IC) requested that the State Emergency Operations Center (EOC) be activated. This was important to the overall mission because it gave the Incident Commander (IC) one point of contact that could find and request additional resources. Once established, and at the Incident Commanders (IC's) request, they requested that the National Guard be requested and activated, that resources should be requested from Tinker Air Force Base, and that the American Red Cross and other voluntary organizations should be activated. There was also a request made to contact FEMA for support and to activate several Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) teams to assist with the response. Other requests were made, but these were the first round of requests, and they were made within minutes of arriving on scene (ODCEM, n.d.).
Like the self‐deployed response by the Oklahoma City Fire Department, many ambulance crews from the Emergency Medical Services Authority (EMSA) self‐deployed to the bombing incident. While they did not know it at the time, the explosion knocked out all incoming lines to the EMSA switchboard, and all emergency lines except for 911 were rendered useless by the explosion. Within minutes, cell phones were unable to make connections. The high call volume jammed the networks just from the sheer number of calls being placed (ODCEM, n.d.).
Prior to the incident, EMSA had integrated and worked with other agencies in the preparedness phase, so they were already aware of what their roles and responsibilities were. The first EMSA personnel that arrived began treating the walking wounded after arriving on scene. They set up at the designated triage areas and began sorting patients according to the seriousness of their injuries. Less than 15 minutes into the incident, they declared a Level Three mass casualty incident and called for EMS resources from mutual aid agencies from across the state (Nordberg, 2010).
EMSA also called for buses to transport those that were considered walking wounded, meaning they had nonlife‐threatening wounds (Nordberg, 2010). Those that suffered more critical injuries would be transported by ambulance. Within the first hour after the incident, over 100 people were transported to one of 12 local hospitals in the area. Prior to sending patients to any hospital (or clinic), the vast majority of EMS crews checked with hospitals to identify that they were available and had the resources to treat the patient being transported. This allowed a more equal distribution of patients and it helped to prevent overwhelming only one or two hospitals. In total, over 670 patients were seen on the first day of the incident (Nordberg, 2010).
A few of the local hospitals were having communications issues in the first 20–30 minutes. The radio frequency used for disasters was turned off, or down, in most of these cases. This is a common practice when there is no disaster because interference, radio waves from distant areas bouncing off the earth's atmosphere (skip), and other similar issues can cause radios to crackle and make a lot of noise. Often, if that frequency or radio is not being used, the radio will be turned down to avoid this annoying noise, and then it is forgotten about. To help mitigate this issue of no disaster communications with hospitals, law enforcement officers were initially sent to the hospitals to advise them to turn the frequency on, or up, whatever the case might be. Additionally, these officers were ready to provide the needed communications by relaying information if needed (Nordberg, 2010).
Less than 10 minutes after the explosion took place, the American Red Cross arrived on scene. Not long thereafter, the Salvation Army arrived on scene to assist as well. The quick response of these two organizations suggest that they were in the process of self‐deploying when the official