Welcome to the Emergency Education network. Tonight, live from Oklahoma City, managing terrorism events, the oklahoma experience. And now, your host ken hines. Ken good evening and welcome to the Emergency Education network. Im ken hines, your host for this broadcast which is coming to you live from the Firefighters Memorial museum in Oklahoma City, oklahoma. Now the topic of this broadcast is managing terrorism events, the oklahoma experience. Tonight, its 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 . Well, it is 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 a devastation of mammoth proportion as a massive truck bomb exploded and ripped apart the murrah Federal Building downtown. This violent act of terrorism killed and injured hundreds of victims and caused severe damage. Emergency personnel and Law Enforcement officers from every corner of the country worked around the clock in and around the remains of the Federal Building to extricate survivors, retrieve victims 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 past watching as the death toll , continued to climb, trying to comfort the families and the friends of those locked inside the rubble. This tremendous tragedy of lost lives in Middle America is one that we will not soon forget. Well start tonights program with an overview of the initial response by representatives of Oklahoma Citys fire, police, e. M. S. 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 scene became a crime scene. Our focus will move on to look one year later at the aftermath, what we have learned and how we can become better prepared as a result of this terrible, terrible emergency. Now we will hear from federal authorities and Technical Response trainers from virginia as they describe how processes and procedures and training initiatives have changed nationwide. As always, youll have the opportunity to speak directly to our presenters during two callin sessions and share your views and opinions with them. Now, we are very, very fortunate to have with us tonight 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 caring for the injured. Lets welcome fire chief gary marrs. Chief marrs was involved with the incident from the very beginning, and he will give us an overview of what they encountered on the scene and how it was handled. Chief marrs, welcome. Ill let you begin. Mr. Marrs thank you, ken. Welcome to oklahoma and our museum. We are proud to have you. April 19th, of 1995, certainly started out as a typical spring day in oklahoma. Warm and sunny. And of course, the explosion occurred. You see that this picture here is pretty indicative of the type of debris that was laying around the murrah building and was what we encountered when we first responded. The first group out of station one were approaching this scene from the west as was the incident commander. Also coming out of station one. But this is pretty indicative of what they were finding in the streets. You see a lot of debris out of the building, briefcases, office equipment. We were also encountering a lot of the walking wounded which inhibited the response coming down the street. We found many damaged buildings and as i have mentioned the walking wounded coming up. Started stopping some of the companies before they actually got up to the building. We had kind of a staggered response coming in. We had a lot of other buildings damaged also. We had as you can see the , smaller buildings in the foreground, the Water Resources and the athenia building received severe building and one were certainly some of the ones that were first seen. And the residential complex also in the background 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 was certainly inhibiting the view and blocking some of the view as was the dust from the explosion itself. The all the fires that we had were in the parking lot, the cars that were on fire. We had no fire in any of the buildings whatsoever that morning. So all the fire that was fought was in the first 30 minutes or so until we could get those car fires extinguished, and the remainder of our operations were all rescue and recovery operations. One of the first things that we did was, we had so many structures that were damaged and had people in them that we set up the incident command system to where each of the building was a separate division. Rather than setting up an incident command for each building, we worked under one incident command and set the different buildings as divisions. We had a murrah division and a regency division and so on and so forth. Some of the searchandrescue involved some of the floor areas that were Still Standing in the murrah building. You see here a picture where the rescue operations on the north building. You see 135 foot aerial working the east part of the building. In the foreground there is a 95 platform. And a 100foot aerial came up between those two. So we had three aerial apparatus working the front of the building. Certainly the rubble pile also. We had numerous building that could free themselves or that we got freed a very easily. Could also make it off of the south side of the building down a stairwell that remained intact. We had a lot of foot traffic and walking wounded coming on to a plaza. But all of the north side rescues were taken off of this aerial apparatus. Our initial command post area was at 6th and harvey which was one block north of the murrah building. You can see the pictures that some of the agencies are starting to organize here, some of the command posts and organization that was going on here and set up here. The some of the hanging debris and rubble that were being cleared in that first day, i think we have another slide coming up here. The this is pretty typical of the hanging debris in the building that were certainly presenting a hazard. Some of the rescues that were taking place in front of the building, we had one of the civilian rescuers, a nurse was struck by something fallen off one of the floors, making she was working a rubble pile and , died later in the hospital. But the initial search and rescue of the building come off off the rubble pile and the remaining floors. We started to address those longterm issues starting to worry about we knew who was going to go into the night looking at lighting, food, sanitation problems at the building for the longterm aspect of it. The logistics and financial. We knew later in the day we knew we had the urban search and rescue teams coming in. We needed a larger logistic area. We started working towards emergency procurement procedure to get those things the supplies and things that we needed. That we knew we were going to need in that longterm operation. And then by nightfall, the first usar teams arrived on the scene and we started working coordinating with them. As you can see we had storms an d high winds moving in. I mentioned at the start of this morning, it was a warm sunny day. Went to thunderstorms and tornado warnings at night. And that was pretty typical of the operations over the next two weeks. Ken very good. Thanks, chief. Well get to hear from you a little bit later on. We have heard the Fire Departments perspective and how they moved on the crisis. Now, lets move and turn our attention to the Law Enforcement division and examine how this branch organized the response activity. Necessary in this incident. Here to give us that overview is Oklahoma City chief of police is sam gonzales. Chief, thank you very much for being here. Chief gonzales thank you, ken. Its my pleasure to be here with you. They had three actions that they could choose. The first of these was to go into the building and assist in the rescue of the building the injured people inside of the building. As you can see from this slide, the water mains inside the building had burst. The inside was very, very hazardous to be in. We have identified over 70 of our First Responders who had entered 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 marrs 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 if 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 st. Anthonys hospital. Certainly the rescue of the injured the transportations of , those victims into the hospital. The third objective and probably one of the most important was the immediate control of our streets so that we could have access for the later responding emergency equipment to be able to get the scene. And we have a slide that should depict early on our maintaining control of the streets. This is very early on. We have set up the perimeters, a couple of blocks back in any direction, that allowed access of the emergency equipment responding to the location. We found from a historical perspective, that its very important for that emergency equipment to be able to go get able to get the location. Get to the location. The next thing we had to do then is find a command center that was going to accommodate all of the Law Enforcement personnel that was necessary. This slide shows you that weve got National Guard personnel there. Weve got the department of Police Safety personnel there. And in the background, this man served as the 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. So we had 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 oklahoma sheriffs office, and 114 other agencies came to assist us with the personnel. Ken my goodness. Chief well be back to talk more , specifically about some of things that you did. Thank you very much. Also joining us is dr. Peter maningas, he is the Oklahoma City medical director of the emergency medical services. And doctor, e. M. S. Critical in this emergency. People seeking care, working with the Fire Department, Law Enforcement. Why dont you give us your overview about your initial response to the emergency . Dr. Manigas thank you, ken. I brought some footage that may help illustrate the e. M. S. Response. Within minutes, the massive medical response was initiated. If i can please have that film. The first call came in at 9 03. We have got several injuries downtown. An explosion. Where is it at . Ymca on 5th. Do you know how many weve got . There is injuries all over the place downtown. On it. Right away. Dr. Manigas even before this call came in at 9 03, the paramedics began to come on scene. And paramedics converged on the scene. They came from the north and the south. From the north they came from st. Anthonys hospital. The first ambulance was in the process of unloading a patient at the time when the paramedic heard the blast. Felt the blast. Immediately gravitated towards the smoke. Heading north on robinson excuse me, harvey until he 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 a supervisor who stopped at the corner of 6th and harvey where the Fire Department had established their instant command post. There were two other ambulances that came from the north. One was in the process of refueling. And the other was manned by paramedics who were being taught advanced cardiac life support at the time. They stopped at the corner of 6th and robinson not knowing that 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 the Federal Building. There are four other additional ambulances that came from the southwest, from the Fleet Maintenance facility. Three of them went to the western side of the building, and a forth to a eastern side of the building accompanied by a supervisor. On this first e. M. S. Response, the casualty count continued to swell out into the streets. You can roll it please. , weve got two critical. [indiscernible] we need a unit. Got about four or five critical. About 100 walking wounded. I need a hospital. Ive got one critical. And i [indiscernible] weve got two critical and one walking wounded. Can you advise which hospital . Emergency. Could you tell us where youre going to be setting up your triage station . You boys need were starting to get most locations and start categorizing. [indiscernible] we have a triage set up. At 6th and robinson. All walking patients. Ask them to go through harvey or robinson for triage. Dr. Manigas at 9 08 the first triage station was established at 6th and robinson where ambulances waited for receipt of patients. The way in was south on robinson and the way out was east on 6th street. There was initial response comprised of paramedics coming from other parts of the city and paramedics manned by excuse me, ambulances manned by offduty paramedics. There were 12 ambulances at the time of the blast. At 9 10 at 9 10 paramedics began to arrive at the Fleet Maintenance facility. At 9 15 there was a page for all offduty paramedics to return to duty. And at 9 17 these ambulances manned by offduty paramedics coming 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, they converged on the western side of the building. By 9 25 most of the ambulance resources were depleted. So at 9 25 a call for mutual aid went out. Between 9 25 and 10 30, 14 other municipalities sent an additional 20 units. If i could have that, please . Again, these units converged in all directions. By the end, within that first hour and a half, there were of six ambulances that would arrive on the scene. 34 from Oklahoma City. Three from tulsa. And 29 from mutual aid municipalities. They were transported over 100 patients that first hour. 32 would have serious injuries. Major lacerations about the neck and face, coupled with blunt trauma. 12 would have moderate injuries and 50 would be walking wounded. Following this evacuation of the initial stream of patients, there was a new concern. There was indication that the maximum occupancy of the building during normal Business Hours with approximately 900. There was a fear there was still hundreds of patients still stuck the building. So we moved the triage area next to building itself. May i have that, please . So the triage area was moved at 10 21 to the Northeast Corner of the building. The way in and out was somewhat circuitous because of the presence of a charged fire hose that was across robinson avenue that was being used or had been used to put out the fires in the parking lot. Occurred an event which changed the Disaster Response from that point forward. May i have that, please . Come on now. Come on now. Get out of there lets go get out. All Companies Come out of the building. Right now, everybody evacuate the Federal Building. Remove all your personnel from the building immediately. Possible explosives planted in the building. I repeat, evacuate the building immediately. Dr. Manigas at 10 29 the first bomb threat occurred, the exact nature of the bomb threat was not known at the time. All rescuers and medical personnel were told was that they were to stop what they were doing and to immediately evacuate the area. This photograph was taken from the Regency Tower facility looking at the north face of the building and the fire apparatuses abandoned. Next slide, please. This caused the e. M. S. Sector to push to the east. The triage area was located at the Railroad Tracks on sixth street. The staging areas were pushed to the north and the south. Next slide. At 10 50 there was a second bomb threat. Next slide. And this pushed everyone back and the 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, capable of providing initial stabilization in the event local hospitals became overloaded. Next slide, please. But during the next few it hours, became apparent that there were not going to be a large number of patients that were going to be taken from the building alive. Therefore at 3 30, the staging area was moved to the western side of the building where it remained to support rescue operations. In first hour and a half, 200 transported by other means. Police, van, pickup trucks. Ther