Transcripts For CSPAN3 Reel America Managing Terrorism Events - The Oklahoma Experience - 1996 20240713

With regard to this proceeding basically there are four elements that i have to receive information regarding [ explosion ] everybody get out of here now. [ sirens ] a Federal Building has been blown up. Holy cow. [ sirens ] welcome to the Emergency Education network. Tonight live from Oklahoma City, managing terrorism events the oklahoma experience. And now your host ken hines. Good evening and welcome to the Emergency Education network. Im ken hines. Your host for this broadcast which is come towing live from a Firefighters Memorial museum in Oklahoma City, oklahoma. Now the topic of this broadcast is managing terrorist events, the oklahoma experience. Tonight were focusing on a serious playing that seems to be spreading rapidly across the globe and affecting every nation including our own. It appears in strikes without warning and leaves a trail of anger, fear and frustration in its path. Its name, its called terrorism. A word that has been ringing in our ears all too frequently of late. Oklahoma city, oklahoma is a city that just over a year ago experienced the devastation of mammoth proportion as a massive truck bomb explode and ripped apart the murrah Federal Building in the downtown area. This violent act of terrorism killed and injured hundred of innocent victims and caused severe property damage. Emergency personnel and Law Enforcement and officers from every corner of the country worked around the clock in and around the remains of the Federal Building to extricate survives, and search for clues to the cause of this horrific scene. Now it seemed as though the entire nation stood still. Holding its breath as each hour passed watching as the death toll continued to climb trying to comfort the families and the friend of those locked inside the rubble. This tremendous tragedy of violence and lost lives in Middle America is one well not soon forget. Well start tonights program with an overview of the initial response by representatives of Oklahoma Citys fire, police, ems and public works. Now we will learn from these departments how cooperation was not only required but vital between response and enforcement personnel as this disaster soon became a crime scene. Our focus will move on to look one year later at the aftermath and what weve learned and how we can become better prepared as a result of this terrible, the terrible emergency. Now well hear from federal authorities and Technical Response trainers from virginia as they describe how processes and procedures and training initiatives have changed nationwide. And, of course, as always youll have an opportunity to speak directly to our presenters during two call in sessions tonight and share your views and opinions with them. Now were very, very fortunate to have with us a group of experts who were the first on the scene after this terrible bombing incident occurred. The first 12 hours were the most critical in regard to the initial response and caring for the injured. First let me welcome Oklahoma City fire chief gary morris. Hell give us an overview what his Fire Companies encountered on the scene and how it was handled. Chief morris, welcome and ill let you begin. Welcome. April 19th of 95 certainly started out as a typical spring day in oklahoma. Warm and sunny. And the explosion occurred. You see that this picture here is indicative of the type of debris that was laying around the murrah building and be encounter. First crews coming out of station one were approaching this scene from the west, and as was the Incident Commander also coming out of the station. This is indicative of what they were finding in the streets. See a lot of debris out of the building, briefcases, office equipment. We countering a lot of walking wounded which inhibited the response coming down the street. We found many damaged buildings and many as i mentioned walking wounded coming up. Started stopping some of the companies before it got up to the murrah building so we had a staggered response coming in. We had a lot of other buildings damaged also. We had, as you can see in this picture smaller buildings in the foreground, the Water Resources building received Severe Damage and some of the ones that were first seen. The Regency Tower residential complex you see in the background also had a lot of people coming out of it, evacuating that building. You see the smoke from the car fires parking lot across the street inhibiting the view and blocking some of the view as was the dust from the explosion itself. All the fires that we had a were in the parking lot, the cars that were on the fire. No fire in any of the building that morning. All the fire was within the first 30 minutes or so until we could get those car fires extinguished and the remainder of our operations were rescue and recovery operations. One of the first things we did we had so many structures damaged and had people in them that we set up the incident command system to where each of the buildings was a separate division rather than setting up a different command for a different command system for each building we worked under one incident command and set the different building as a division. We had a murrah division and a regency division and so on and so forth. Some of the initial searchandrescue certainly involved the floor areas that were Still Standing in the murrah building. Here you see a picture where the rescue operations on the north face of the building. You see 135foot aerial working the east of the building. There was a 94foot platform. A 100 foot aerial came up between two. We had two apparatus working the front of the building and rubble pile. We had numerous people that could free theirselves or we got freed very easily could make it off the south side of the building down a stairwell that remain intact so we had a lot of walking wounded. But all of the north side rescues were taking off this aerial apparatus. Our command post area was at 6th hearn via which is one block north of the murrah building. Seeing this picture that some of the agencies are trying to organize here the command posts and operations that were going on here. And set up here. Some of the hanging debris and rubble that were being cleared in that first day, i think we have another slide coming up here. This is pretty typical of the hanging debris in the building that was certainly presenting a hazard. Some of the rescues that were taking place on the rubble pile in front of the building, we had one of the civilian rescuers a nurse was structure by something falling off one of the floors, she was working the rubble pile and died later in the hospital. But the initial searchandrescue of the building came off the pile and main floors. We addressed long term issues, starting to worry about the we knew we would go in at night looking at lighting, food, sanitation problems for the long term aspect of it. Also expanding the is system logistics and finance. We knew, later in the day we had urban searchandrescue teams coming in. Logistics area. We started working towards emergency procurement procedures to get supplies and things that we need. That we knew we would need in that long term operation. Then by night fall, the first teams arrived on the scene and started working, coordinating with them. As you can see in this slide here we also had heavy storms and high winds move in. I mentioned the at the start of this morning, it was a warm sunny day, pretty typical spring day in oklahoma. Went to thunderstorms and tornado warnings that night and that was pretty typical of the operations over the next two weeks. Very good. Thanks, chief. Well visit with the you later on. We heard the Fire Departments perspective and how they initiate a response effort. Lets turn our attention the Law Enforcement division and examine how this branch organized its response activity necessary. Here is oklahomas chief of police sam gonzalez. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Its my pleasure to be here with you. The responding police units, the first respondents had three cousins they could choose. First go in the building and rescue people. As you can see from this slide the water main inside the building had burst. Inside was very hazardous to be in. We identified over 70 of our First Responders who went into the building to assist in the rescue of the injured and the recovery of the bodies. Secondary objective of those responding was the transportation of the injured. As chief morris had said for blocks around the streets were filled and lined with people who were injured. We have identified over five police cars that were used in the transporting and we can bring up the next slide, we have identified over five of our vehicles that were used in the transporting of over 30 of the victims to the closest hospital to us which was Saint Anthonys hospital. So certainly the rescue of the injured, the transportation of those victims into the hospital. The third objective and one of the most important was the immediate control of our streets so that we could have access but later responding emergency equipment to be able to get to the scene. We have a slide depicting the control of our streets. This is very early on. We set up the perimeter. We found from Historical Perspective that its very important for emergency equipment to be able to get to the location. The next thing we had to do then is find a way to establish a command center that was going accommodate all the Law Enforcement personnel that was necessary. This slide shows you that weve got National Guard personnel there, we dot the department of Public Safety flerm and in the background, Law Enforcement and Fire Command Center throughout this entire operation. The last slide that i have shows the size of our perimeter. We collected evidence and had evidence inside of 20 square blocks. When he an extremely large crime scene perimeter. It took about 450 Law Enforcement officers on a daily basis just to maintain our perimeters. We had help from the oklahoma highway patrol, the Sheriffs Office and 114 agencies within our state came in to assist us with the personnel. Chief well be back with you also later on in the show to talk more specifically what did you. Thank you very much. Also joining us is dr. Maginnis, and doctor, ems critical. People seeking care, working with the Fire Department and Law Enforcement. Give us your overview about your initial response. I brought some footage which may help illustrate the ems response. Within minutes massive emergency medical response was initiated. If i could please have that film. The first call came in at 9 03. We have several buildings. Where at . Do you know how many we got . There are injuries all over the place. We got it. Were on the way. Even before this call came in at 9 03, paramedics began to arrive on the scene. Between 9 02 and 9 05, several ambulances, emts converged on the scene. They came from the north and south. From the north they came from Saint Anthonys hospital. The first ambulance was in the process of unloading a patient at the time. When the paramedic felt the blast, gravitated towards the smoke. Heading south on robinson, excuse me on harvey until made it to the northwest corner of the building where he was essentially overtaken by huge numbers of people both injured and uninjured. He was followed by his supervisor who stopped at the corner of 6th hearn via where the Fire Department established their command post. Two other ambulances came from the north. One was in the process refueling and the other manned by paramedics who were being taught advanced life support at the time. They stopped at the corner of 6th and robinson not knowing the Federal Building had been involved because of the smoke that had been streaming in the skies from the car fires located in the parking lot across the street from Federal Building. There are four other ambulances that came from the southwest. From the fleet mainland facility three went to the western side of the building and fourth to the eastern side of the building, accompanied by a supervisor. Finally this first ems response the casualty count continued to swell on into the streets. You can roll it, please. We have two critical. Weve got about four or five criticals now, about a hundred walking wounded. Im at fourth and harvey. I have one critical we have two critical and one walking wounded. Any advice which hospital. This is fire. Could you [ inaudible ] setting up a triage station. If you have it up here, were starting at multiple [ inaudible ]. We need triage at sixth and washington. All walking patients ask them to go to harvey and robinson. 9 08 the first triage station was stab lished at sixth and robinson. Ambulances awaited receipt of patients. Each ms was located. Way in was southbound robinson and way out is eastbound 6th street. Following the establishment of this triage area, paramedics manned by ambulances manned by off duty paramedics. 12 ambulances in other parts of the city at the time of the blast. At 9 10 paramedics began to arrive at the Fleet Maintenance facility. At 9 15 there was a page for all off duty paramedics to return to duty. At 9 17 these ambulance from other parts of the city converged on the scene. Can you roll that, please . They came from all directions. From the north and the southeast they converged on the initial triage area from the south and southwest converged on the western side of the building. By 9 25 most of the ambulances resources were depleted. So at 9 25 a call for mutual aid went out and between 9 25 and 10 30, 14 other municipalities sent in an additional 20 units if i can have that, please. Again, these units converged in all directions. By the end within that first hour and a half there were 66 ambulances that would arrive on the scene. 34 from Oklahoma City. Three from tulsa. And 29 from mutual aid municipalities. They transported over 100 patients that first hour. 32 would have serious injuries. Major lacerations about the face and neck. 12 would have moderate injuries, and then 15 were walking wounded. This evacuation of the initial stream of patients theres a new concern. There was indication the maximum occupancy of the building during normal Business Hours was approximately 900. There was fear there were hundreds of patients still trapped in the building. There was a necessity to move the triage area next to the building itself. The triage area was moved at 10 21 to the Northeast Corner of the building. Way in and out was circuitous because of a charge across robinson avenue that had been used to put out fires in the parking lot. At 10 29, the Disaster Response was changed from that point forward. May i have that, please . Come on out. Come on out. Get out of there. Lets go. Get out. All evacuate the Federal Building. Remove all of your personnel from the building immediately. Possible explosive in the building. Evacuate the building immediately. At 10 29 the first bomb threat occurred. Exact nature of the bomb threat was not known. All rescuer and medical personnel were told they were to stop all they were doing and to immediately evacuate the area. This photograph is taken from the Regency Tower facility looking at the north base of the building. You can see that the streets are empty and the fire apparatus is abandoned. Next slide, please. This caused the ems sector to push to the east. The triage area was located at the Railroad Tracks on 6th street. The staging areas were pushed to the north and south. Next slide. At 10 50 there was a second bomb threat. Next slide. This pushedern back even further. Triage area was pushed back to 6th street and harrison at the location of an abandoned warehouse. Within minutes that warehouse was turned into a field hospital. Manned by over 50 physicians nurses and paramedics. It was capable prove providing initial stabilization in the event area hospitals became overloaded. Next slide, please. During the next few hours it became apparent there were not going large number of patients that were is going be taken from the building alive. Therefore, at 3 30 the staging area triage area was moved to the southern part. Support rescue operations. In the first hour and a half, 139 patients were transported, 95 by emsa, 44 by mutual aid. Over 200 were transported by other means, police, van, pickup truck. 422 patients seen in 17 area hospitals that day. 389 were injured. 89 would be admitted to the hospital. Of those that were transported, we only had six fatalities. One was dead on arrival. Two died in the emergency department. Three died from complications related to multiple injuries. Very good, doctor. Thank you very much for being with us. Well talk to you later on. Now joining us is bob ricks is a Information Special agent in charge of oklahoma with the federal bureau of investigation. Hes currently the director of oklahomas department of Public Safety. Also with us is paul broom, the director of public works and City Engineer for Oklahoma City, he supervises five divisions with over 580 employees. All of whom were involved in Recovery Efforts in 1995. By the way, paul was selected as one of the top ten public work directors in north america. Gentlemen welcome. A great deal to discuss. I guess one of the questions that we brought bob and paul in would be massive event before we went on the air we talked about when the fbi respond. Very quickly after the emergency. Lets talk first about that Law Enforcement intercooperation. You two knew each other. Knew the capability of each department. Bob, lets start with you. What did you do when your agents were initially deployed . Initially my agents were deployed directly to the scene even before i arrived. They were assisting in the rescue mission as the initial response as well, and starting to conduct some preliminary evidence gathering and looking at where perimeters were. When i arrived i tried to seek out sam gonzalez, the chief police. I know it would be the decisions we made on the scene at that moment that would pretty much solidify what we would do in the future. Sam also was looking for me at the time. Sam fortunately and i had attended various schools back at the fbi, we knew each other on a personal level as well as professional level. And if theres one thing i could stress is that its not a time to develop a relationship after a bomb goes off. You must have that relationship developed beforehand. And in the case with sam gonzalez and myself we already had that. Sam because of his prior training at the Fbi National Academy as well as other advanced management schools had to have training with regard to terrorism and understood what the fbis role was in regard to such incidents. Sam, when he and i got together said, bob, this looks like its obviously a terrorist incident, and under the guidelines that are in existence primarily the responsibility of the fbi. We will give you every bit of assistance that you need but we understand that the criminal investigation must rest in your hand and i appreciated that. We had that agreement and that pact from the beginning. After that we both went together to search out the chief of the Fire Department, gary morris, and we had also had a previous relationship through various groups that we belong to same type of groups where we did benefits for fire and police as well as we knew each other on a professional and social basis. So, again, gary morris indicated that he would be there to assist whatever had to be done, but it was at that moment because of the nature what existed, the cat as catastrophe, we said focus official had to be the searchandrescue mission. We can obtain evidence later. But we needed to set up perimeters, secure the inner and outer perimeter. But let nothing interfere with that rescue mission and that was the agreement we had with gary from beginning. Its important to note for the viewers that the fbi did not have its offices in this Federal Building. Thats correct. We were about ten miles away from where the explosion took place. We were in a commercial office building. How many agents were deployed . We had approximately 70 fbi agents in the Oklahoma City area and the entire office did respond. At least in one fashion or another. We also had to maintain a command center at the main office as well. Within the first 24 hours we probably had another 200 fbi agents that respond the area. So that also creates a logistics problem. Have 200 or so other people who are coming to town. You have to find space. You have to find cars. You have to find telephones. You have to equip people who are coming to the field office, oftentimes with nothing other than their person. Some were close enough in the vicinity that they drove and brought materials with them. But in some cases we had agents arriving from throughout the country who were only bringing their person and we had to fully equip these people. I know its chaotic trying to get a grasp on what is occurring. What were you looking from the fbi . The murrah building housed several federal agencies. Dea and secret service was there, atf. It was important for us to establish that fbi would be the lead agency to do the investigation and other federal agencies knew our coordination was going and through fbi. We had a personal relationship. We had a working relationship. It made it extremely easy for us to accomplish. The same with chief morris. We got together in the Oklahoma City motor home about 10 45 so or 10 50 that morning along with our mayor and established some guidelines, areas of responsibility, set up sometimes to go public and have our first press conference, and from there things fell in place pretty well. Paul, were not ignourg. A lot of people may not realize an operation of this magnitude from the discussions we had here calls for a lot more players than the initial Emergency Responders, fire, police and ems. Paul, lets talk a little bit about what Oklahoma City public works did providing portable toilet, barricades. What was your initial when did you get the initial call and what were the first things your organization did . Our First Response as some of my supervisors were there within minutes after the bomb went off. They utilized their pickup to take the walking wound in the hospital. Then in turn bring doctors and nurses and equipment back to the bomb site while they were awaiting on the barricade crews. Who followed up. As soon as the bomb went off i made calls to my barricade people and asked them to head toward the site. Within about 10 or 15 minutes we had barricade crews en route that were there to support the Police Department in trying to take care of the perimeter, to keep the people how to that shouldnt in the area. That raises an interesting point that we discussed earlier in the day, doctor, one of the things we saw on television is this massive response of volunteers, doctors, nurses. I dont know whether the media requested doctors and nurses. Off Duty Police Officers from all over oklahoma. Firefighters. Everybody came. Lets talk specifically about ems, the problems that presented for you. This incident was unique. It was located in two miles of five major hospital, saint toens and presbyterian. Because of that physicians and nurses initially went to the Emergency Departments. Soon the Emergency Departments them self were inundated. Saint anthony indicated they had approximately 1,000 medical volunteers poised to offer medical assistance. Then there was some unsolicited requests on behalf of the media that for anybody with any type of medical training to go to the Federal Building itself and indeed they went. The problem was with that was these medical volunteers converged on the scene were not part of the command system and were essentially unprotect and acted in an uncoordinated fashion. It was a two edged is sword. We needed assistance in evacuating people from the area. However as the chief indicated to me, when he later on told me that not only did he have the responsibility of his firefighters but those still trapped in the rubble but now as medical volunteers entered the Federal Building and the rubble pile they became his responsibility as well. And the risk to the medical volunteers, one was struck on the head by debris and later died. One of the things that seems to he a common theme in Disaster Responses across the United States is initially those First Arriving police cars and ambulance, fire trucks are almost like a magnet for the walking wounded and often its not the walking wounded that dont need the care. Its the people that cant get to the ambulances. Chief, when the First Arriving unit arrived on the scene, First Engine Company what did doe . Did he put out a general alarm . What did he do . Our Incident Commander was responding from the same station that the first crews were. So the chief was table establish command very quickly and it wasnt necessary for one of the First Companies to do that. But youre correct the walking wounded, the streets were so clogged with not only the debris but crews. They had to go slowly when they having to go very slowly when they would eventually have to stop because of either people or whatever. And they got out to treat those people, they may have been minor, but they seemed to be very as you said a magnet. Other people saw the firemen working on those. They would then come over and it was almost like they were starting to stack up there and getting treatment. Theyre not going to leave them at that point. So those first few crews were taken by some of the walking wounded and so forth that were actually preventing them from getting up to the building itself. Was it a problem maybe not problem was the correct world but was ate challenge to set up that triage area . It was a challenge, i mean, there were to many people about the streets injured and uninjured all trying to get help, offer assistance, and it was as any disaster a chaos. Thats why the instant command system was so important. One of the things i found kind of amazing, talking to bob and sam here, was that pretty early on you were all thinking that this is a crime scene which were going to discuss in our next segment. But fire people were thinking your thought was natural gas explosion . Well, certainly. In your Fire Training and fire experience, youre trying to go through some of those catastrophes that fire people think of whether it be chemicals or gas buildup or gas pipeline and so forth and trying to figure out from those choice what is it could have been. Speaking with all five of you sitting here as you put your collective Heads Together that morning thinking back. And theres a lot of Lessons Learned there in terms of things that you did right and things that you wish you may have modified just a little bit, is there anything that jumps out of a real success that you had. Obviously, you had the relationships. Everybody knew everybody. And i think thats an important element. Bob, lets start with you. We had many successes, you know, when you consider the the immensity of what occurred. One area, though, where we had a weakness early on, which was displayed pretty glaringly was our failure to communicate early on. We did not have a common band that we could communicate. We had worked joint exercises with the Police Department where we would share f. B. I. Radios and so forth. But as a general rule, we work separately. In this case, though, we usually thought that we could use cellular phones. And what we found out was because of the catastrophe that occurred, all the cells were locked up, and initially we could not communicate. Literally, we were having to meet on street corners. We would send runners and say lets go to 6th and harvey and have a meeting. It was Like Technology jumped backwards about 100 years. The only way we could communicate was almost facetoface. This was corrected later in the afternoon. But during the Early Morning of the chaos, as was described we went back to a primitive form of communication. Sam, lets go to you. Things that you thought really went the way they were supposed to go . I think probably the key was the relationship existing between the three players, between the f. B. I. , the Fire Department and the Police Department. Looking back, one of the things that im proudest of that the Oklahoma City Police Department did was a lot of the early responders that took the initiative to set up street barriers and to stop the traffic and to do some perimeter control when you know their hearts are let me go in the building, let me help affect a rescue. Let me help somebody thats hurt. But in the long run what we needed to do was seize control of the perimeters and seize control of the egress and access to the building. Chief, one of the things that we wanted to touch on in the initial response was the media. This was as soon as it occurred, it was going out in cnn and all the News Services and everything that happened in Oklahoma City. Lets talk about what you did with the Media Coverage early on, the pool coverage, i believe. Well, we were getting a lot of questions in later days on the slowness of what they thought was the slowness of the efforts and what was taking so long. So we put together a pool Camera Network to where we took a representative from the broadcast media, print media, still photographer, radio, put them into what we call pool and took them inside the building and showed them what was going on, the operations that were going on, the amount of shoring and bracing that was having to be done, the tremendous efforts that were being used to get people out of their trapped state and so on. And that had a very positive impact because they were able to come back out one of the agreements with those that were selected to go in was that they had to come back out and share that information and film footage and Everything Else with all of their counter parts. They were able to come back out as the media and explain what they saw and what was going on in there. And they werent hearing it from someone they might have been skeptical of. So it had a very positive effect. And i think it certainly enlightened a lot of them. What did you have in place that functioned . We dont think of public works being involved in disaster situations. Well, naturally, we know that any time we have a disaster that were a big player whether it be a tornado or a flood. We know were going to have to provide the heavy equipment necessary to assist the police or Fire Department. Its not unusual for us to dig for evidence for the Police Department or to help our Fire Department with a haz mat operation. I was amaze thads my personnel were taking the initiative because when i would call for something i would find it was already on the way. And one of the issue were lights. They said weve taken care oift. Were headed that way. I found that happening a lot of times. I found that a lot of my people wanting to get volved that perhaps they didnt need be involved. And we were having to hold some of those people back. Thank you, gentlemen. We heard from the gentlemens from the core response groups. Explain how they organized the response efforts within the first 12 hours of the incident. Let next. Well take a look how the teams work in corporation as weve heard already at the bomb site and how it quickly became am crime scene as well as a disaster scene. Well be right back. Welcome back. And for those of you who may just be joining us, were in Oklahoma City speaking with the group of experts that spear headed the response following the bombing of the federal murrah building in april 1995. After the efforts were underway, it was aparent that this horrific disaster scene was also a crime scene. How does one colorado continue a search and rescue effort without disrupting any criminal evidence . And how do personnel teams work as a unit to retrieve victims, brace and shore the building and remove rubble and debris without disturbing that Critical Evidence of that criminal act . Here to tell us is chief gary marrs. How did your Department Work to rescue folks and not disturb any evidence . Well, after that first day that we discussed the we settled into the longterm rescue and recovery operation. And it was very slow going. The type of debris and rubble was almost picking by hand and doing the the bringing that debris out. As you can see in this photo here, it was such a cooperative venture because in the back, you can see firefighters from different scenes, but you see f. B. I. And d. E. A. Also. They were working side by side. Initially it started with the firefighters to bring rubble out. While the Law Enforcement was looking at that and searching it for evidence and personal belongings and so forth. But it very quickly evolved into where everybody was pitching in there and bringing that rubble out in a very coordinated effort. We did a coordinated search of the building, you see, in this picture here as one of the urban search and rescue team was searching one specific spot. You had to coordinate all of this activity, so that you were covering it in a very coordinated fashion and you are not going back and repeating certain areas. Bracing and shoring activities were something that was taking a long time to do. And certainly had to be very coordinated. Bob ricks mentioned earlier, the coordination and realizing search and rescue was so important, we simply had to make sure that as the f. B. I. And the Law Enforcement people did their crime scene search and their evidence recovery that we coordinated all that together so they werent off digging in part of the building that we werent aware of. The building was very unstable. Bracing and shoring was snag was taking us an awful long time to do, extremely slow due the instability of the building. Had to be very careful and monitored. In the slide, you can see three distinct floor levels of bracing and shoring with the concrete floors in between them. You see the black steel pipes bracing between the columns. All of the columns were a real concern because when they lose their floor connections they are very unstable, you had to make sure they were stabalized. We were working 24day operations. You can see how welllit the front of the building is. Paul mentioned earlier the lighting system that was brought in. We had it very well lit. It took a lot of coordination because of the heavy machineries. Those large cranes were not just something that you could pick up and move very easily when you realized you had to move a crane, the operations would seize so that you could reposition that. That had to be coordinated with a lot of the crime scene work because as they needed that heavy equipment, we had to free up what we could and work with them, but yet moving it and getting it to reposition took an awful lot of time. One of the things that we stress very heavily in this incident was our csid activities. We started doing diffusing with our Critical Incident stress team in the morning and set up a procedure to where all of our people had to go through diffusing before they could leave the sight and we continued that through the whole operation after the operation was over with, some 17 days later, we put everybody through mandatory debriefing sessions, the entire department. And because of these activities i think we certainly got a handle on the mental stress aspect of this incident and certainly lessoned our impact of it. One of the key parts of the incident was what we call a max center, multiagency command center. This was a one room in the Myriad Convention Center where we had representatives from all of the agencies. And it was staffed 24 hours a day. It became the one area that you could go to and get supplies ordered, get them delivered, you could get your questions answered and it worked out very well for us. The Myriad Convention Center, i mentioned it earlier, where was we housed a number of the strike teams and it became our center for our feeding operations. The oklahoma restaurant operation was preparing for a convention there. They had to cancel. They had cooking facilities and food and stuff on hand. And they started preparing meals that very first morning tand they continued that throughout the entire operation serving hot meals 24 hours a day. It had restricted access in the myriads and only volunteers and rescue workers were allowed. So it became a way became a place for them to get away from a lot of that hectic activity that was going around. This is also when the volunteers made such a difference because there wasnt anything that they wanted that they didnt get either out of the myriad or somewhere. A lot of talk has gone on around the country about the oklahoma standard and the Community Caring i believe was set here at the Myriad Convention Center because they had such a tremendous response from the community and working with the rescue workers. We finished up activities on may the 4th at 11 45 at night. We had worked down to where we only had two victims unaccounted for. We thought we had a pretty good idea of where they were at in the remaining rubble but yet, it was in such a place the stability of the building would not allow us to clear that area off. We ceased our operations that night. We pulled all the people together and said a few words and the chaplain said prayer and then we all went home. We had a closure service the next day on the site where we put the word out and let all of the people that had worked in that building or around that building or in the activity showed up the next day to put whatever closure they needed to to this incident they could bring their families down and then at the end of the closure service, we turned that Building Back to the Police Department and ceased our operations. Thanks, again, chief. Lets go to police chief sam gonzales, chief of police for the Oklahoma City state department. They were very much involved in securing evidence of the crime. Now, chief, what were some of the obstacles that your Department Face and encountered in terms of trying to keep the area secure and keep the media from keeping them informed but yet keep using them as a tool . Yeah, as i stated earlier, our crime scene was 20 square blocks, probably the hugest crime scene that weve ever had. Once we established the perimeters, we had to make sure that only those people that were authorized to come into a crime scene were allowed in the crime scene. Not only did we have that problem, but we also had to make sure that the many, many businesses and residents and dwellings inside of this crime scen were safe and secure from people who may try to do some looting, people who may want to pick up some souvenirs of this explosion. We had a lot of large pieces of evidence that had on the be collected within the 20 square blocks. This slide depicts the rear end of what we believe is the bomb vehicle. It was a block away. Witnesses said it sounded like a boomerang as it come down the street and impacted the front of this little read car. So we had numerous pieces, large pieces of evidence within this 20 sware block that we had to collect. Also as steve marrs said, we had to sift through the rubble. This slide depicts the police, the secret service all of the yellow buckets as they collect debris from the building and take it down to a flat spot down in front of the building. Once the debris has got to that point, then they used rakes. So they use sifting bins and they would actually sift through all of the debris for the collection of both the physical evidence of the crime and for personal property. During this process, we collected 440 individual case of personal property that fill two semitractor trailers. This was loaded in dump trucks, taken offsite and resifted again to make sure that we didnt actually lose any evidence or lose any personal property. We also found out that we had cars across the street that were involved in the fire that may contain evidence of the explosion itself. We had teams of federal and local crime scene investigators who process these cars. We had 82 vehicles that we processed in five days and got them out of the way. Made the rest of the Recovery Efforts go a lot better. Also, within this scene, we had 432 personal cars that were left by the citizens when we established our perimeters and they could not get back into the crime scene to get their cars out. We established a procedure before they could go to city hall, get a release on their vehicle, and then go to one or two predetermined location. We were fortunate that we had a recute class going on at the time. The recruit would escort them to their car, make sure it was the proper car and then escort them back out of the crime scene in an attempt that we made sure we kept the integrity of the crime scene. Also with this large of a crime scene, we would have hundreds of volunteers inside the crime scene each day. We had to make sure that the people who were in there, had to be in there. Anybody that came on to the scene, Law Enforcement, personnel, Salvation Army, recross any of the volunteers all received an i. D. Tag. The background of the tag told you if you were looking at them, the amount of access to the crime scene that they had. A clear background was Law Enforcement gave you access to anything. A red background was very restrictive and you had to be escorted by someone. During the process, we issued over 25,000 of these tags. We also had a problem in maintaining the integrity of the crime scene in making sure that we could get food into the hundreds and hundreds of volunteers each day so that we would have hot food. U. P. S. , one of our very, very good corporate citizens came to our rescue. They have a recognizeable truck, so they could make the food deliveries and we could maintain the integrity of the crime scene. The last thing i would like to talk about is the media. We were very fortunate because we established the fact that we needed a location very close to the scene. But one that we could isolate. He identified two squared blocks and we secured them. We put all the media in that one location. The media represented a unique challenge and that the difference in the Organizational Culture of police and fire and Law Enforcement amend crime scene and disaster where normally police try to keep media out of crime scenes, and disasters we need to document what were doing. And the media to document what were they doing . So we had some early differenceses of how we handled the media that we worked through rather rapidly. I think it went real well. We had established some factual information to the media. The media without factual knowledge would go to the experts to determine who did this and as we all recall very early on, the experts determined it was mideasterners who committed this crime and caused quite a consternation. A point that was raised was that Oklahoma City, the division heads, Department Heads had been to the Emergency Management institute less than a year before over the courts involved with the mayor, the police chief. Peter, lets start with that. Was that a good experience . Obviously, i know its a good experience with e. M. I. Having been there a number of times. But the pluses that came from that, maybe did that give you an edge here, ahead of the start . I think what it did was solidified some personal relationships were established prior to the disaster. It solidified the understanding of each others roles and responsibilities during a disaster. It was a tremendous experience for the city. And i think it was integral to the success of the disaster operations. Paul, with you, public works, your crane operators there is probably dont travel in the same circles, you might go by the fire station. You obviously see the Police Officers on the street. What about it being included in this . Well, our dispatchers got to meet the dispatchers of the police and Fire Department. So they knew them on a firstname basis, so it made it easy for them to make contact with those people. Whenever they needed something from us they werent bashful about calling. They just said we need it. And it was our responsibility to see that it was there. Thats great. Bob, from a criminal standpoint, were talking about this is a disaster scene and a crime scene. One of things they teach you in Law Enforcement academy is dont let people contaminate the scene. Im interested in maybe you can or cant tell us but as the buckets were carried out, what were the items being looked for . Were there any indicators given to the rescue people as to look for this . These are the things were interested in what were you looking for specifically if you can tell us . We had evidence Response Teams that came in from throughout the country. And we would have supervisors that would be looking at the materials as they were brought out. Ok. And pretty quickly we could make a determination whether it had anything to do with the bombing or containing these bombing type substances that needed to be tested. Fortunately, with the bomb, what youre trying to do youre trying to put back together the vehicle, firstoff. Youre trying to find as many components of the vehicle as much as you can. Youre looking for my bombing component that you find. And there are certain tell tell signs that exist there. These are not items that are easily destroyed. Certain bombing materials, the components of the bombing material, they may be destroyed because of weatherer, rain, but the hardware that comprises the bottom is going to be there. Its not going to be destroyed. So we werent worried about someone standing on a piece of evidence and destroying it or whatever, but we had the same concerns. And we had to maintain a chain of custody just like any other crime scene even though it was much larger in scope and we had many people involved in the process. Ultimately, we had to have an f. B. I. Agent or whoever was assigned to that particular task, sign off on that piece of evident. We had to be able to identify exactly where that evidence was obtained. It had the be followed and maintain proper custody. Certain procedures had to be set up and it was made even more complex because it was the largest disaster for many of the agencies involved that they had ever encountered in the history of their agency. So obviously they wanted to participate and we could not without destroying longterm relations exclude them from the investigations so we had at times 20 and 30 different agencies that were participants in this investigation. Many rightfully so. It was up to us to find a legitimate function for them to be in the investigation, but at the same time, the ultimate responsibility for the integrity of the investigation rested with the f. B. I. So it was somewhat complex to insure we integrated into somewhat of a unified command but still the ultimate responsibility had to reside with the f. B. I. Gary, something we talked about earlier also, great deal of discussions going on here prior to the show, was sam talked about a Police Department p. I. O. You have a p. I. O. F. B. I. Special agent in charge. E. M. S. Might have a p. I. O. In a situation such as this one, there was not one spokesperson. Everybody took a turn and talked about their area of expertise. Well, thats true. It worked out very well. I know a lot of courses one person speaking for the incident and so on. But we found that the way we worked it, seemed to work very well for us. And i think one of the key factors was we didnt have any of those egos or turf battles going on in Oklahoma City. We were also blessed with the political structure that didnt feel the need to be the lead people to stand up or talk or to try to lead the incident. So hopefully what you saw in the National Press briefings that we did daily was you saw sam doing the police talk. You saw the bob do the f. B. I. Stuff. The mayor talked about the city. I talked about the fire rescue. And when questions came up that were not of say my area, i would certainly make sure that was handed off to one of the others to answer. That seemed to work very well. We also kept down close to the site, we kept representatives there 24 hours a day to answer those questions and to deal with the media, and to do those onthespot interviews and the news breaks and so forth and to make sure we try to get the media people as much as they needed and worked with their schedules because we knew we were restricting them and keeping them in a very tight quarters. So we knew we had to work with them very well. Peter, lets go to an issue that i think is in Disaster Management is difficult to manage. And that accountability of victims. Finding out how many people were in the building. How many people were walking down the street in the buildings across the street. Plus, youre sending people to different hospitals by ambulance going in police cars. Was accountability of victims impossible initially . It was nearly impossible to do. We used triage tags to properly identify the patient. There were just too many people who were too badly hurt to worry about triage tags as a primary priority. Our priority was to get the people out of the out of the building and get them to a hospital. So it was very difficult to have an accurate number of how many patients were actually transported at any given time. We tried very hard to do that to have a general idea. But certainly we didnt have accurate figures. I think you said seven hospitals were involved in this. 17 hospitals received 389 patients. Were you loading the ambulance . Were there more than two or three people on the what we tried to do was maintain no more than one critical patient per ambulance. At the most, two patients or possibly three in some situations. But there would never be more than one critical patient on a unit. Patients found different modes of transportation to the hospital. You heard chief gonzales and many went by police vehicle, many by pickup truck, there was an individual in a brandnew corvette that took patients one by one. One of the things as we wrap up this segment is the phone calls that mustve come into police, fire, ems. Im trying to find out about my loved one. Thats not something i have heard ever addressed. Did you get phone calls and can you tell me if there was an increase in phone calls to 911 . There was an increase in phone calls to 911. We could not answer all of the phone calls, but we could not respond to all of them. One of the things we learned on a personal note was our root our Emergency Response team, we batched page them. They could not get in either. Luckily the Television Coverage was good enough they all went to the Training Center and we dispatch them from there. It changed the method that we do. A lot more to talk about, phone calls coming up in a second. We heard about the Oklahoma City fire and Police Departments were able to work together, performing rescue and recovery without that crime scene area without disturbing evidence. We return, a at how things have changed one year after the emergency, and what future initiatives to expect from response personnel. Please stay with us. music music music music music music welcome back. We have discussed how operations were handled at the Federal Building disaster. We will talk again, we talked about it being a crime scene and rescued efforts were balanced against that, maintaining Critical Evidence. We will focus on the changes this has brought to various First Responder departments, and what new procedures have been developed and what future initiatives we can expect. Chief morrow, what did you learn and what would you pass on . If there was one thing you could tell people out there, what would that be . I have been asked that many times and i dont know that i could say a lesson is learned so much is reinforced. It goes back to communication and cooperation. I cant stress enough how important i thought it was that number one, people had gone together and talked and planned and trained together, as you mentioned some time that. If they dont get anything out of this other than one thing they need to understand that one agency cannot handle these scenes by themselves. It takes an effort by all of the different people doing what they do best, and letting people do that and not try to micromanage an incident or one agency trying to micromanage an incident. I think again, the lesson reinforced for us is you have to work, you have to communicate, you have to cooperate. I know that since the bombing incident, more than ever we have been doing training, we have been communicating, we have been getting Response Teams together not only with police and fire, public works, they are doing a lot of initiatives now. Public works people are getting involved in rescue training and so on. Again, just a lesson reinforced about interagency communication. Paul, if you had one thing to pass along to public works people or Emergency Service people you would work with, what would it be . The most important thing is to get you emergency call list uptodate. If that list does not only cover your own personnel but it must cover police, fire, it also needs to cover telephone, utility companies. My emergency call list has all of my contractors names and phone numbers, down three levels of personnel. It tells me how much equipment theyve gotten where it is located in the city. Peter . There are two things we have changed since the incident. The first is the way we handle volunteers. Weve changed the Emergency Operation plan in case some thing like this happens again, that nurses will first go to emergency department. More medical nurses will first go to their houses instead of the emergency department. If more medical support is needed, they will go to a place the stage. Also, because the Communications Assistant fell into disuse, i believe 75 of the hospitalss systems were not functioning and we had to go back and monitor and evaluate our Communications Hardware and put it back into service. Chief . What bob said earlier to me was one of the strong keys, to have a preexisting relationship between police and fire and federal agencies. The middle of the crisis is not the time to come in and say i am sam gonzalez and i am the police chief. You have to have those in place. I can see that from Oklahoma City, the state capital. Would you advise me the same for a small bedroom community, 30,000 . Probably more so. Anytime you have an incident of this magnitude. If this had not been a Federal Building it would still be an act of terrorism. Theres no way the Police Department wouldve had the resources to immediately followup and go to kansas and do what needed to be done, go to arizona. Our resources are not there. You will need the resources of the fbi and federal government to do that. You need the resources of the Fire Department or urban search and rescue. In training, if there is a place we fall short, it is the police and agencies train a lot together and as a city we trained together, but seldom we as a city in the federal lawenforcement train together and thats the other perspective to bring in. That would probably be a good plot for anyone to contact the federal Law Enforcement agency and say i just want to introduce myself. As we go through this, i think one of the things people might ask is how was this paid for, what type of shifting did you use . Initially every firefighter on duty was at the event, and you backed with Mutual Aid Companies. How long did that last and how did it change . Thats true, all of our companies on duty that day responded that morning and we backfilled our dacians with mutual aid and our stations with mutual aid and Oklahoma City put reserve apparatus and service. How many firefighters are on shift . We have approximately 280, 290 folks on a shift. That pretty much stayed that way into the middle of the afternoon before we started releasing Companies Back to their stations. The overtime, the offduty people coming in were released sometime toward the middle of the night. During the next 14 days, it was a blend. Sometimes the activities were such that we did not need the offduty and we simply would do it with onduty rotating companies and Mutual Aid Companies, and we were other days when there was a lot of activity and we would have to do call back of offduty. What about Police Officers . Was there still Law Enforcement protection in the city . All of your Police Officers did not respond to the emergency, they were still covering their beats . Absolutely. Over 700 of our 1000 officers at one time or another work to the site, but we have an Emergency Response team of 120 officers that was the core group that provided perimeter control and protection. The rest of the officers pretty much stayed and worked normal areas and stops. Probably one thing i would change is i would find a way to rotate them into the procedure. For that 17 days, it was hard on them not to come to the site or be involved in any way. Not only from our community, but our department, everybody wanted to have a hand and be part of it. It was extremely hard for them to stay out and do the routine stuff. What about ems . Do you work eight hour shifts, 24 . Did you change the hours people worked . We have variable shifts but the experience was the same. The first hours were the most critical, and the need decreased after 9 00 in the evening. We had a significant reduction in all other emergency calls. Since our staff was adequate to take care of the rest of the city. Normally we dont think about public works as a 24 hour job unless you are water or light. Were you providing heavy equipment and what type of changes did you make with your staffing and how long did it last . Staffing and providing fencing and barricades, we placed those folks on 12 hour shifts. We are used to doing that because of the snow and ice patrols. They are very used to that. It wasnt a problem. One of the things we had to do is set up a small city because we had as many as 60 porter parties moved in, 600 tons of garbage to haul out, and a lot of activities here. Plus we still had people at city hall wanting billing permits and inspections and other things because we had a city to run as well. We split our crews up so we could do both. Lets talk a little bit before we break about the urban search and rescue teams. Fema has a relatively new initiative, the urban search and rescue teams were brought in and supported, helped out the community. Tell me a little about how you interface with them and your reactions to that. They came in, we were notified the afternoon or first day that there were two teams in route, and they would determine how many additional teams were needed. Additionally eventually we had 11 different teams. They rotated in and out. But they were very beneficial. What they bring into you, they bring 60 people per team. They dont necessarily bring a lot of personnel power, but they bring the equipment and level of training with them in these types of activities that cannot be matched anywhere. They bring you the civil engineers, the people who have dealt with disasters and so forth. That is really what they bring as a benefit. But they came into obama city Oklahoma City from the beginning sent into supporters. They told us over and over again they were there to support us and fit into our incident command system and be used however they needed we needed them to be used. It worked very well. Peter, less question before we take a break. In terms of disaster supplies, one of the questions that dawned on me is most ems organizations have a cache of ems supplies. Was any of that used . We had our own but we were inundated by supplies provided by hospitals and area organizations. We had an overabundance of medical supplies. It even posed a logistical problem itself. The sterility of disposables. Thank you. Now it is your turn to ask these panel of experts about the Oklahoma City bombing experience. Running me for this Interactive Panel are chief the fire chief from Oklahoma City, the police chief for all, city, the police chief, the chief of medical services, and director of public works. I encourage you to call. As you move through this, i know youve all had a number of speaking engagements talking to different folks. What has been the reaction of people, your peers within Law Enforcement, fire and ems . Sam, lets start with you. What questions do you get . What do people want to know . Pretty much what we have talked about tonight. How they can expect and how to respond to things they need to do. Emergency plans they need to put into place. One of the keys we talk about is having a list of resources you can contact. We were fortunate that this happened at 9 00 in the morning and not to 00 in the morning, not to2 00 in the morning. Some of the response from the community we had might not have occurred. But how to take care of the cars, the identification system, the feeding and housing of people. These are all issues they are concerned about if this occurs in their jurisdiction. Paul, what about you . Public works people i think see themselves as First Responders because they know any time they know anytime i have a flood or fire, sometimes we are asked to knock walls down and assist the Fire Department. What i would recommend to my public works counterparts as they put together an Emergency Response team. Volunteers of 1215 people i can depend on and they are given instructions to respond to a certain location in case of an emergency. We use the response team, we outfit them in special uniforms so that they are labeled when they get onsite and the police and Fire Department know who they are so they can respond and assist them. We have a color on the line from Oklahoma City. A caller on the line from a glamis city. Are you there . My question is, the Department Heads went to an emi conference, and what i wanted to know is when they came back to Oklahoma City, did they have any practice sessions or anything like that prior to this incident . Chief . We certainly had some discussions, certainly when you came back, one of the first things you talk about is revamping your Emergency Operation plan, looking at procedures you may have had sitting on the shelf. What you went through with emi and how to revise those beard the Emergency Operating Center in oak loma city works under the police chief department head, and we sent the books out and said its revise them. That was in july. April of 1995 was not that much longer after that. Sam . We have several emergency drills. I hate to tell you but i am not sure on the timetable between july of 1994 and april of 1995. I feel like we had one, because we do them twice a year, primarily out of the airport. We did revise some of the things we do with our Emergency Response team and assisted them in responding better. We have a caller from iowa. Go ahead. I have a room full of American Red Cross Disaster Services volunteers and we would like to know if we could talk a little bit about the different agencies that work more in the background and how we served this situation. And we certainly wish a glamis city and everybody the very best, and we are all praying for you. Peter, lets start with you. I am struck by that question because as i was thinking about it, when i going talk what i am struck is this is not about a single agency. It is about a nations response to disaster. There were so many agencies behind us. We were doing a job and it was our duty to take care of patients and rescue people, but these individuals were volunteers and i was so struck by that. Ive seen photographs of people getting giving back rubs to police and firefighters, people taking laundry home at night. Normal folks doing laundry. Absolutely amazing. One of the stories i heard, i think one of the guys i talked to from new york city said the World Trade Center bombing, a cup of coffee cost three dollars, but in Oklahoma City you got it for free. The red cross and Salvation Army and volunteer groups where the forefront. I probably did not do a good enough job, but when i spoke about how the oklahoma standard was set by the volunteers, that was red cross and Salvation Army in those folks. One point you touched upon earlier i wanted to mention was how you dealt with the families and the people calling in and asking about family. The red cross energized one of their shelters early that morning, a charge about two miles north of the site. They query they very quickly established handling of family members and victims. To wear on site down there that morning, not only people who came up on site but people who might have called about family members were directed to the red cross center, and they handled that and it became the family center, and it was a very emotional site and stayed in place until all of the operations were ceased. That could not have happened without the preplanning and training and foresight of the red cross to do shelter operations in disaster planning. A big caps off to them. Certainly all of those relief organizations deserve applause. We have another caller on the line from piedmont, oklahoma. Go ahead. What i would like to know is when Oklahoma City went to general alarm, basically my main question is your Mutual Aid Companies from across the state that came, you had to have people or firefighters from all around that responded to the scene, and you had to call other agencies to cover Oklahoma City. I want to know what you guys felt as far as mutual aid from places that really did not get the call but came and offered assistance as far as emts on staff and like that. The people that came in not necessarily in our mutual aid networks, but the ones from the remaining part of the state in around the country, we had firefighters flying in from other states over the next few days. A tremendous response coming in. And certainly you are grateful for it and encouraged by it that they want to come in and help. It presented a problem logistically working with the people that come in like that, because it dawns on you all of a sudden that you have the responsibility and liability for those folks. We set up a mutual aid command post that all people who were not Oklahoma City had to go check in through the mutual aid command post. Those people bore the responsibility for checking out the firefighters coming in, that they had the training and so on. They came in from all over. They were certainly a big benefit that first morning when we needed all the hands we could get. Peter said he had a lot of doctors and nurses. Did you get Law Enforcement officers also offer help . It was a problem initially because, everybody will agree in the first hour we got a lot more people in that building then we safely needed. A lot of the people did not have the expertise to be in the building. We certainly had a lot of Police Officers in our community that responded and wanted to help. A lot of offDuty Police Officers. We quickly set up our command post and command center and had all of the Police Officers go through them for assignments. A lot of them we sent home, told him to come back at 6 00. We ran them through the command center. In terms of Emergency Response and disaster preparedness, you touched on the program you went through. What outside organizations have you brought into that or are first up in terms of calling, like the red cross and Salvation Army. Maybe the local phone company for the cell phones. The companies that went with us, we took people from the hospital staff, our Electric Company, gas company. They all played a key role in assisting us in the community and being able to respond. I agree, this was a community response, it was not any need we had put out by the media, we were overflowed with goods of one kind or another. Did you use the media at all in terms of not only to talk about the incident but in form and say please stay away . These are the things you need to do if youre interested in donating, this is what you should do. Did you use the media not only as a News Organization but to inform . We had to be very careful with the media, because if we made a request, you were liable to get 300 pairs of boots. You had to be careful. At one point chief hansen had to inform the public that we had to stop the centralized food distribution. Everybody was bringing food to the site, which became a Health Hazard to the rescuers. There was one task force, to theirs of the task force came down two thirds of the task force became ill and we thought it might have been because the food was contaminated. We had to be careful with the request and funnel them through the chain of command. Be careful what you wish for. Paul, what about you . Providing fuel, public works provides fuel trucks, taking care of nonemergent needs that Emergency Responders might have. Anything you would change after what occurred . I dont think so as far as that is concerned. Anytime we needed anything, we would be covered up with it. The Fire Department had indicated one night they needed temporary wiring to light up a parking garage, and so i went to the Electric Company and said can you help me on this issue and they said no. We have electricians but we dont have household type wiring into those types of things. It was a matter of a telephone call and that stuff was delivered to me. They had it hooked up in a matter of hours. Thats the way it was, anytime you needed something, you made a call to the proper people and just the fact that you need to know who to call. It was there. You would not want to get out the phone book during a disaster. Thats all we have time for right now. I want to thank all of you who have called in with you can watch archival films unplugging films on Public Affairs on a weekly series reel america, saturday and sunday here on American History tv