With regard to this proceeding basically there are four elements that i have to receive information regarding [ explosion ] everybody get out of here now. 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 spread rag paidly 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 for the cause. 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 morris. Hell give us an overview what his Fire Companies encountered on the scene and how it was handled. Chief moremorris, 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. Wren 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 sweat 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 fafts building. You see 135foot aerial working the east of the building. There was a 94foot platform. A 130foot 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 gottfried 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 congressman 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 sear 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 fanning ic system into 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. The responding police units, the spi 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 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 other agencies within our state came in to assist us. Chief well be back with you also later on in the show to talk more specifically what did you. Also joining us is dr. Maginnis, and doctor, ems critical. 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 initiatived. If i could please have that film. The first call came in at 9 03. Even before this call came in at 9 03, paramedics began to arrive on the seen. 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 build hydrogen 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. 9 08 the first triage stationed was started. Ambulances awaited receipt of patients. Each ms was located. Way in was southbound robinson and way out is eastbound 6th street. Following the bliemt establishm 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. 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 3014 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. Majorlacerations about the face and neck. 20 had moderate injuries and 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 . 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 athle threat. Next slide. This pushed much back even farther. 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. 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 traiage area was moved to the southern part. 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. 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 jeer for Oklahoma City and 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. 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, dont duct some preliminary evidence gathering and looking at where perimeters were. When i arrived i tried to seek out sam gonzalez, the chief police. Decisions we made on the scene at that moment that would pretty much solidify what we would do in 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