Why Flexibility is an Important Component to Any Disaster Response

(TNS) - At a San Bernardino County department operations center activated in the wake of the Dec. 2 terrorist attack, a decision was made to marshal extra ambulances from Riverside County.

Three teams of five ambulances were assembled — one was sent to Redlands, another to Rancho Cucamonga and the third remained in Riverside on standby.

Given the uncertainty about what was really happening, the thought was there might be a secondary or even tertiary event, said Tom Lynch, EMS administrator for the Inland Counties Emergency Medical Agency, which coordinates emergency medical response between ambulances and hospitals in case of an emergency.

In a mass casualty event, decisions about which patients would be sent to which hospitals would be managed from the ICEMA operations center.

The short duration of the terrorist attack, which killed 14 and wounded 22, meant decisions needed to and could be managed from the field, he said.
After the call for help arrived at 10:58 a.m. Dec. 2, the San Bernardino Police Department set up a command post in the trunk of a squad car in about 10 minutes, and the mobile command post “bus” was set up within an hour, said Chief Jarrod Burguan.

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