Urban Tulsa Weekly December 02, 2004
What If?
Doomsday scenarios abound in the post-9/11 world. But bracing for the unknown is something we are getting better prepared for
By Hilton Price
The sky darkens. The winds pick up. Thunder cracks. Lightning slices through the sky. A storm is brewing, and in Oklahoma that can mean disaster. Tornadoes are always a major concern in spring, but hail, flooding, freezing rain and heavy snow are other "severe storm" elements are possibly waiting behind every ominous cloud.
Compound that "fear factor" along with hazardous material accidents, the common house fire (our most common disaster) the new threat of terrorism and Tulsa could seem like a pretty scary place.
Luckily, in times of disasters there are a variety of different groups working to assess the damage, pinpoint the next threat, and tend to the injured and displaced people that are left behind. From government agencies to throngs of volunteers, disaster relief is a huge process that brings together resources and manpower under strict coordination to ensure the biggest disasters leave Tulsa and her citizens with only a few light scars.
But how prepared are we for possible disasters, natural or otherwise? How much do they really threaten our lives? Who are these people who step in to clean up the mess when these horrific "What ifs" occur, and how do they stay prepared for their jobs? What can we, the everyday Tulsans, do to keep ourselves prepared, and extend a hand to others enduring a disaster of their own?
Gimme Shelter
The American Red Cross is the only non-governmental agency that plays a lead role in disaster response. Alongside police, fire, and medical personnel, the American Red Cross works to assess damage, provide care for the injured, and help the displaced get their lives back in order.
"When a disaster does happen, there are a number of things we are going to do immediately," says Bob Roberts, the Sr. Associate of Planning & Preparedness for the Red Cross' Tulsa Area Chapter, one of the people who oversee this work in action. "The three things we're probably looking at first are going to be where the emergency shelters are needed, whether mobile feeding or fixed feeding sites are going to be needed, and where we need to initiate damage assessment to find out what's happening on the scene."
Shelters are always a possible necessity after a disaster, especially when a large number of displaced people are left behind. Securing the building for the shelter and ensuring it will provide the necessary accommodations for its temporary residents are both responsibilities of the Red Cross.
"If we have to set up shelters, we've got agreements with about 200 facilities in the area," Roberts said, "schools, churches, community buildings, even the fairgrounds if we need large scale shelter. We've got agreements with them. We have a map of the building. We know what kinds of utilities they've got. We know if they have backup generators. We know how many people they can hold. We know if they have a kitchen. We have all that information ahead of time."
Feeding, for both the disaster victims and the people sent to help, is also a major concern. The Red Cross is equipped with several large Emergency Response Vehicles, or ERVs, which can provide meals and snacks along with medical and technical resources.
We may cook the food," Roberts said, "or in the initial stages we may just purchase it, and we'll get feeding out there for both the victims and the response workers, and for the Red Cross workers. The utility people out there, the phone people out there, the fire, police, and so on, they can do their job a lot better and a lot longer if they don't have to hunt for supplies. So we'll get meals and drinks and snacks for them."
Damage assessment is another role the Red Cross is involved in, even to the point of monitoring every inch of a disaster area and taking note of its condition.
"We have a number of people who will go out, as soon as it's safe to go into the area, in teams of two or three to do damage assessment." Roberts said. "They will walk or slowly drive every single street and write down information on every single house. And again, we're sharing that information back and forth with emergency management, with city public works, and with the other people who do damage assessment."
Who's In Charge Here?
Emergency Management falls on the shoulders of Mike McCool. As Emergency Management Director for the City of Tulsa and Tulsa County, he's is in charge of coordinating the efforts of a variety of agencies in times of disaster.
"We coordinate the response and we coordinate the recovery." McCool said. "The 911 center will notify my office of a large emergency or disaster, and we'll operate the siren system here in town, and activate the Emergency Management Center here at the police station.
"Then, just like police, fire, and EMSA, we respond, and then we assist in the recovery afterward."
McCool's team, himself and four other people, is in charge of bringing in the other response agencies, including the Red Cross.
"We're the people who ask for help." McCool said. "We ask the Red Cross for help. And then we're the people who provide resources to the scene, to help Police, Fire, and EMSA. We're asking 'Do you need more fire trucks? Do you need more ambulances, public work dump trucks, excavators, boots, water, anything?'"
The Doomsday Scenario
The spectacle of planes flying into buildings and waterways being contaminated has been on the minds of those in municipal governments since the events of 9/11. If the situation weren't so serious, it would be somewhat amusing, watching various municipalities argue over which of their cities is a more enticing target for terrorists.
Locally, nobody in Tulsa government is complaining about the federal funds coming its way in this area; yet this is one of those areas that nobody likes to talk too much about.
Catastrophic event planning is better done behind closed doors.
And according to Mark Hogan, public facilities security manager, there is reason to be sanguine over that planning.
"If there was a catastrophic event, Tulsa is prepared," he says, adding that if there were some kind of emergency in the water or air, "We are ready."
He cites a symposium that city and county officials made to Emmitsburg, Maryland where they dealt with disaster preparations for three days."
When asked, specifically, how Tulsa officials would deal with an attack, say, on our water supply, Hogan points to the organizational cooperation between agencies, agencies that Hogan describes as already being "close-knit" due to their work during floods.
Hogan says that there is in place something called a syndromic surveillance system in Tulsa county, which is a computerized system that coordinates data from all the emergency departments, including police, fire, water, air quality, and medical.
Concerning, for instance, the introduction of biological or chemical contaminates in the water, Hogan says the system would work like this:
"Say we have a viral bug in south Tulsa, or suspect it. We know that many people will try self-medicating before going to doctors, so we check with pharmacies in that part of Tulsa to see how much anti-diarrhea medicine is being sold. We then contact doctors and other agencies."
Hogan says, though, that the way Tulsa water is filtered, it would be difficult for that to happen. He says Tulsa for years has used a system of chlorination and filtration.
On that supply, Hogan says that the city's drinking water is screened everyday for substances, both coming in and going out.
So has a catastrophic event ever been predicted for this area?
While admitting that some of the information is above his pay grade, Hogan says that "nothing has been released; nothing I'm aware of."
Other areas, too, are of concern in a doomsday scenario, most notably banking and commerce. During the days leading up to Y2K, for instance, banks tried to reassure customers that records were redundant. The system didn't have to be tested. If a terrorist strike came against the banking industry today, it would come via cyberspace, a situation banks say is constantly being monitored and guarded against.
The line from The Godfather about how a man with a briefcase can rob more money than all the men with guns has to be updated. The concern is no longer a man with a pistol in a ski mask; it's a man with an Ethernet connection and a series of hacked passwords.
Government agencies have known that al Qaeda had planned to attack American banks, but say any attack on Wall Street or U.S. banks couldn't cripple America's financial system, because banking and stock transaction data is routinely backed up in remotely located computer centers. After 9/11, many businesses, other than banks, adopted plans for staying in operation after a disaster.
The effect, officials say, would be more psychological.
"That's the nature of terrorism," said John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org.
"Terrorism is to terrorize. The data is backed up off-site, but the people are not."
So, to the question of whether or not you could get your check cashed, the answer may have more to do with whether the banks could survive a run on their funds after a terrorist attack than from the effects of the attack itself.
The Human Element
Tulsa's most common disaster isn't large scale. House fires make up 99% of the Red Cross' response calls, so although it is tornadoes and terrorism that we may fear the most, it is our kitchen stove that provides the biggest threat.
"We call them 'small disasters,'" Roberts said. "But if it's your house it's the biggest disaster there ever was."
It's that attention to the victim's perspective that plays a part in the Red Cross response to all kinds of disasters, from all-too-common house fires to large scale weather events.
JoAnn Woody is co-chair for the Red Cross' Disaster Action Team, and knows how important it is to tend to the individuals involved in these crisis situations. "We're going to send a team of volunteers out there to meet with the family," she says, "to assess their emergency needs, and help take care of those needs.
"What we look at is whether they have a safe place to stay that night, or maybe for a couple of nights depending on what the situation is. Do they have a couple changes of clothes. If the fire happens at two o' clock in the morning chances are everybody got out in their pajamas and slippers. You can't take care of business the next day wearing your pajamas."
Once immediate accommodations have been attended to, Woody looks at the days ahead for the disaster victims, both in taking steps to rebuild their lives and handling the heavy emotional burden enduring a disaster can bring.
"As the family is trying to figure out the next step, we encourage them to meet with us here," Woody said. "We try to set up times that meet with their schedule, and there are ways we can help them throughout the recovery process. We can provide referrals and hook them up with other agencies, and there are some areas where we can help directly.
"We have volunteers who act as counselors for them. A lot of times, it may not affect them right away, but sometimes a day or two later reality starts to set in, and we have volunteers who are licensed counselors who are able to meet with our clients at the time of the fire, or even later, as things start to hit them."
Roberts adds that sometimes the simplest of acts can help someone enduring a crisis, and be the best counseling of all.
"If you're in the middle of a disaster," Roberts said. "the world has become a very unfriendly place all of a sudden, and maybe you're feeling like you've lost control, and sometimes just the fact that we're on the scene and we can put a cup of coffee in someone's hands is the best mental health counseling you can provide."
And as for Next Time
The Emergency Management Center is always in preparation for the next disaster event, and McCool hopes citizens will follow their lead.
"We spend all our time preparing to respond." McCool said, "We make sure all our equipment is working right. We make sure the siren system is working right. We are constantly urging people to buy tone alert radios. That's the radio the emergency alert warnings come through. We urge citizens to get these radios so they can get the warning."
Steve Piltz, Meteorologist-in-Charge at the Tulsa branch of the National Weather Service, is also a proponent of the tone alert radios, or weather radios.
"They're the easiest thing." Piltz said. "It runs continually with basic weather information on it. But when it's sitting quietly in alert mode, anytime there's a storm warning, it will set off a siren, or a light, or a pillow vibrator for the hearing impaired, and let you know what's happening."
Piltz said when used in conjunction with local radio and television weather coverage, both of which get information from the National Weather Service on top of the work of their own meteorological teams, the weather radio can help keep people prepared and alert when weather gets dangerous.
"The radio and television stations, they can't wake you up." Piltz said. "But we can wake you up. And then you can use the radio and television stations, and then you've got the best of both worlds."
Staying aware of possible severe weather situations is only part of the preparation. Bob Roberts is quick to point people to the Red Cross website, www.tulsaredcross.org, where a wealth of disaster safety information is available. The site is especially thorough, covering fire, flood, tornados, and winter storm preparation alongside terrorism, wildfire, and even carbon monoxide safety information. The site is also a place to purchase safety supplies, including weather radios (Wal-Mart and Radioshack also have those) and first aid kits.
The website is also a place people can look for information on how to volunteer. As a non-profit organization, the Red Cross relies heavily on volunteers. The Tulsa Area Chapter has only 6 staff employees, with hundreds of volunteers rounding out the team.
According to Woody, the volunteers who spend their time with the American Red Cross have a hard job, but one they wouldn't turn down.
"It's pretty tough work for the volunteers," Woody said, "but we've got volunteers that have been doing disaster action work for 20 years or more and they can't foresee any let up in it. They love it. They're committed to it, and that's what makes our volunteers here so great."
All of the information, supplies, and opportunities available through the website are also available via 831-1100, the Tulsa Red Cross main number. This is also the number to call for donations, which are always welcome.
It's the donations and volunteered time, the preparations and response readiness, and the active work of numerous organizations in these times of disaster that keep the city prepared for anything and quick to react when that anything finally occurs.
For Roberts, the work of the Red Cross, as well as the Emergency Management Center, the National Weather Service, and the countless fire, police, and medical personal, all fulfill a simple need.
"We try to provide a little sense of order amid the chaos."
© Copyright 2004, Urban Tulsa Weekly
