# West,TX Explosion/MCI



## EMDispatch (Apr 17, 2013)

http://www.broadcastify.com/listen/feed/2663

Fertilizer plant explosion Multiple buildings on fire and damaged including a nursing home, and apartment complex. IC advising 10+ structure fires and entrapment in the nursing home complex. Unknown pt count, but large number for sure. Confirmed FF down, they were at the scene of a rekindle at the time of the explosion.

Quick recap by local news: http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/...orted-At-West-Fertilizer-Plant-203505331.html


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## WTEngel (Apr 17, 2013)

I'm about 80 miles north of there, and felt the shockwave.

This was no small explosion at all. I am sure it registered as a small EQ on the seismograph. 

I fear that by the time this all shakes out there will be multiple fatalities.


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## EMDispatch (Apr 17, 2013)

Minimum of 9 fly-outs at this time. All involved are doing an incredible job. It has to be the last thing you'd expect when sent out for a rekindle.


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## WTEngel (Apr 17, 2013)

you can listen here:

http://www.broadcastify.com/listen/feed/2663


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## WTEngel (Apr 17, 2013)

Wow, the improvised triage area was just evacuated and the safety perimeter was widened. They say another fertilizer tank is on fire. This is absolutely surreal.


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## EMDispatch (Apr 17, 2013)

Live video: http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Explosion-Rocks-Fertilizer-Plant-During-Fire-203508011.html

DPS helicopter flying over about 30 minutes ago confirmed the one anhydrous was completely missing.


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## WTEngel (Apr 17, 2013)

West EMS director forecasts 60-70 fatalities at this time.


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## EMDispatch (Apr 17, 2013)

WTEngel said:


> West EMS medical director forecasts 60-70 fatalities at this time.



Would not be surprising,  early shots from the chopper appeared to show the remains of a firetruck at the plant... It's dark so it was hard to tell, but combined with the early released audio. There's a high possibility of first responder fatalities. The apartment complex had almost total collapse on the second floor too.


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## WTEngel (Apr 17, 2013)

Unconfirmed reports that 5 firefighters and 1 police officer were on scene and likely died in the initial blast.


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## Aidey (Apr 17, 2013)

One of the articles I read said that there was a fire crew on scene following up on an earlier fire at the plant when the explosion happened.


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## EMDispatch (Apr 17, 2013)

Aidey said:


> One of the articles I read said that there was a fire crew on scene following up on an earlier fire at the plant when the explosion happened.



Yes, unfortunately AlertPage posted the initial radio traffic on the blast. IC advised multiple firefighters down.


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## Fox800 (Apr 17, 2013)

Latest I've heard: 5 FF's dead, 60-70 total dead, 200 injured (40 critically).


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## Fox800 (Apr 17, 2013)

I'm at med school about 70 miles north. Trying to figure out something my class can do to help.


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## EMDispatch (Apr 17, 2013)

right now the scene is overloaded, but tomorrow all the hospitals are going to need as much blood as they can get.


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## WTEngel (Apr 17, 2013)

TCOM or UT Southwestern? I am starting MedSci at the end of May at UNTHSC.

If you get something together, let me know, I would definitely like to assist!


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## Fox800 (Apr 18, 2013)

WTEngel said:


> TCOM or UT Southwestern? I am starting MedSci at the end of May at UNTHSC.
> 
> If you get something together, let me know, I would definitely like to assist!



TCOM. I will definitely let you know. A blood drive would be great. Not sure how to do that. Would we all drive down there and donate? Donate locally and they'd get it down there?


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## usalsfyre (Apr 18, 2013)

Anyone heard how AE 51 fared in all of this? I'd worked at that base with some of the crews in another life, keeping everyone in West in our thoughts.


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## WTEngel (Apr 18, 2013)

I am sure ARC and Carter have already mobilized blood products to the appropriate areas. Any donation up here or down there is helpful, as Carter and ARC will mobilize it as they see fit.


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## Aidey (Apr 18, 2013)

Aren't most of the serious cases going to be shipped up to DFW anyway?


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## JPINFV (Apr 18, 2013)

From Dr. Bledsoe's Facebook page...

*"West EMS building destroyed."*


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## WTEngel (Apr 18, 2013)

usalsfyre said:


> Anyone heard how AE 51 fared in all of this? I'd worked at that base with some of the crews in another life, keeping everyone in West in our thoughts.



I heard Air Evac sent 9 aviation assets initially, and I am sure CF sent a few. Seems as though every ambulance and air asset within about 50-75 miles is present.


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## JPINFV (Apr 18, 2013)

Fox800 said:


> I'm at med school about 70 miles north. Trying to figure out something my class can do to help.




Food, blankets, clothing, toys, money. There's nothing you can do to help -now,- but there's going to be a lot of people displaced by the explosion.


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## Fox800 (Apr 18, 2013)

JPINFV said:


> Food, blankets, clothing, toys, money. There's nothing you can do to help -now,- but there's going to be a lot of people displaced by the explosion.



I'm thinking blood drive and money.


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## WTEngel (Apr 18, 2013)

Aidey said:


> Aren't most of the serious cases going to be shipped up to DFW anyway?



Parkland, Methodist, Presby, et al, are about the same distance as Scott and White. Hillcrest is the closest, where most of the patients are being sent initially, but I am sure they are being stabilized and shipped ASAP. I can not imagine the scene in that ED right now. Wish I was there to lend a hand.


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## EMDispatch (Apr 18, 2013)

JPINFV said:


> Food, blankets, clothing, toys, money. There's nothing you can do to help -now,- but there's going to be a lot of people displaced by the explosion.


All good ideas, their dispatchers sounded out the all hands alarms and got everyone they need for the short term and then some... I'm sure they'll also start rotating crews as the situation gets under control.

CNN advising 2 EMS personnel are confirmed dead: http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/18/us/texas-explosion/index.html?hpt=hp_t1


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## lightsandsirens5 (Apr 18, 2013)

We are listening to it here at work on the radio. Sounds like they have enough fire support for now. Just still getting swamped with EMS stuff though.

We are already starting to pick up slack to the south as resources are moving south.


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## Fox800 (Apr 18, 2013)

I'm pimping out my class to donate blood at Carter BloodCare.


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## Aidey (Apr 18, 2013)

CNN is saying they evacuated 2,600 people. Isn't that basically the entire population of the town?


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## WTEngel (Apr 18, 2013)

Yeah, not quite the entire population, but a good majority. I was looking at google maps and it looks like the West EMS building and Air Evac base 51 was about 2-3 blocks away from the explosion. Those buildings were basically portables...I can't imagine that they are still standing.


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## Aidey (Apr 18, 2013)

Per what Dr. Bledsoe had posted on facebook, the EMS building was destroyed. Someone also said there was an EMT class going on at the time and there are casualties among the students.


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## Fox800 (Apr 18, 2013)

Aidey said:


> Per what Dr. Bledsoe had posted on facebook, the EMS building was destroyed. Someone also said there was an EMT class going on at the time and there are casualties among the students.



Oh no... h34r:


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## Fox800 (Apr 18, 2013)

Off Bledsoe's Facebook wall: 2 EMS providers reported dead on KTVT by the EMS medical director in West (George Smith, DO)


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## WTEngel (Apr 18, 2013)

I know that the numbers are not nearly comparable, and 343 is many more than will have made the ultimate sacrifice in this case, but anytime a small community like this loses even one public safety officer, it is a big blow. 

In this case, where there were multiple fatalities from the same department, and their co workers are still on the job dealing with the emergency at hand, it has got to be overwhelming. I hope they get the necessary CISD and psych support they will almost certainly need.


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## Sublime (Apr 18, 2013)

WTEngel said:


> I am sure ARC and Carter have already mobilized blood products to the appropriate areas. Any donation up here or down there is helpful, as Carter and ARC will mobilize it as they see fit.



This is a good idea. I'll go donate tomorrow and tell everyone I know to do the same.


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## enjoynz (Apr 18, 2013)

You are having a really bad week in the USA...Thoughts go out to everyone involved with both shocking incidents!


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## abckidsmom (Apr 18, 2013)

Was this an accident?


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## WTEngel (Apr 18, 2013)

Almost certainly it was an accident. It was burning earlier in the day, rekindled, and then blew. Similar incidents have happened in the past, albeit rarely.


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## abckidsmom (Apr 18, 2013)

WTEngel said:


> Almost certainly it was an accident. It was burning earlier in the day, rekindled, and then blew. Similar incidents have happened in the past, albeit rarely.



Thanks. The 20th anniversary of the Branch Davidian thing is tomorrow. Very coincidental, even for this week in April.


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## Household6 (Apr 18, 2013)

God speed to everyone down there assisting.. I'll be sending y'all my good vibes and prayers today. Be careful.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQbkt7R834w


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## Fox800 (Apr 18, 2013)

Latest word is 2 paramedics deceased, 6 firefighters deceased, 15 citizens deceased although I'm sure that number will rise as crews search damaged structures. 100-200 patients, 40 were critical.


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## Bullets (Apr 18, 2013)

abckidsmom said:


> Thanks. The 20th anniversary of the Branch Davidian thing is tomorrow. Very coincidental, even for this week in April.



Considering this particular weeks history, bad things happening is hardly coincidence


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## JDub (Apr 18, 2013)

I arrived on-scene about 30 minutes after the explosion. When I got there I attempted to get to the nursing home that was almost completely destroyed. I ended up stopping at an ambulance getting overwhelmed and assisted them in triaging patients. Shortly afterwards we evacuated everyone back to the high school football field (you have probably seen the pictures from here). We managed to get all of our red and yellow patients transported and a majority of our green patients. Around this time we lost most of our air assets due to weather. Then we were ordered to evacuate about another mile south to the community center and setup like a makeshift hospital there. We ended up using school buses to transport the walking wounded and organized all of our ambulances. We expected another wave of patients but they never really came. We were gearing up to conduct search and rescue, but we were told to stand down because they were concerned about more explosions and downed power lines.

In the end we know that a 50 unit apartment complex was reduced to just a skeleton. The nursing home was almost completely destroyed. West EMS' station was severely damaged. The AirEvac base was severely damaged and the helicopter was taken out of service. The West intermediate school was almost completely destroyed.  Finally several homes were leveled and almost half of the town suffered broken windows and minor damage. 

Before the explosion 6 volunteer firefighters responded and are all currently missing and presumed dead. One West EMS member responded with an ambulance and several EMT students inside. They died inside the blast also. I am not aware of any rescuers that died after the initial explosion.

Currently the news is stating 15 dead and 160+ injured. I know that we triaged many more than that. Plus many people took themselves POV to the hopsital. The ATF locked down the scene and so the body recovery process was held up for much of today.

I honestly felt like I was in a movie. I have never experienced anything like this in my life. Ultimately I think everyone did a pretty good job considering how much chaos there was. This is a small town and it is gonna take a while to recover from, but I am glad that there were no more explosions or complications with toxic fumes.


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## chaz90 (Apr 18, 2013)

Sounds like everyone involved performed admirably. So sorry to hear about the horrible losses incurred by such a tight knit community, but I'm glad it was at least mitigated by the heroic efforts all responders put forward.


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## Bullets (Apr 18, 2013)

Seems like a lot of agencies responded to help, were these all dispatched, or did people just start self-dispatching and showing up?

Who provides normal EMS to West? Private, Municipal, Fire?

Seems like you guys did pretty damn well considering the weather was getting bad and the nature of the incident. Once again EMS shined this week, and this was truly catching you by surprise. 


Saw that Texas sent 4 MABs to the incident, how did they work out and how much time did you spend with them? Im the chief engineer for one stationed in NJ so im always interested in how well they are utilized in incidents in other states


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## WTEngel (Apr 18, 2013)

JDub said:


> I arrived on-scene about 30 minutes after the explosion. When I got there I attempted to get to the nursing home that was almost completely destroyed. I ended up stopping at an ambulance getting overwhelmed and assisted them in triaging patients. Shortly afterwards we evacuated everyone back to the high school football field (you have probably seen the pictures from here). We managed to get all of our red and yellow patients transported and a majority of our green patients. Around this time we lost most of our air assets due to weather. Then we were ordered to evacuate about another mile south to the community center and setup like a makeshift hospital there. We ended up using school buses to transport the walking wounded and organized all of our ambulances. We expected another wave of patients but they never really came. We were gearing up to conduct search and rescue, but we were told to stand down because they were concerned about more explosions and downed power lines.
> 
> In the end we know that a 50 unit apartment complex was reduced to just a skeleton. The nursing home was almost completely destroyed. West EMS' station was severely damaged. The AirEvac base was severely damaged and the helicopter was taken out of service. The West intermediate school was almost completely destroyed.  Finally several homes were leveled and almost half of the town suffered broken windows and minor damage.
> 
> ...



Thanks for the information. It sounds pretty much in line with what we were speculating. Absolutely unbelievable...

Get some rest brother, and stay safe.


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## JDub (Apr 18, 2013)

Bullets said:


> Seems like a lot of agencies responded to help, were these all dispatched, or did people just start self-dispatching and showing up?
> 
> Who provides normal EMS to West? Private, Municipal, Fire?
> 
> ...



I personally self-dispatched because I knew a lot of people there and realized they were gonna need help. Shortly after I left I heard over the radio an all hands mayday page. I believe close to every Fire/Rescue outfit in about a 3 hour radius got paged. People were coming from even as far away as Dallas FD, ATCEMS, Frisco FD and probably a lot of others.

West EMS is a volunteer service that normally handles the city. They have a lot of willing volunteers, but only 3 ambulances. ETMC handles the rest of the county. 

I personally did not see any of the MABs. I left around 0230 in the morning because at that points we were almost completely out of the patients and the MABs had not arrived yet. So I am not quite sure if they did anything at all.


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## Aidey (Apr 18, 2013)

Bullets said:


> Seems like a lot of agencies responded to help, were these all dispatched, or did people just start self-dispatching and showing up?
> 
> Who provides normal EMS to West? Private, Municipal, Fire?



Per Dr. Bledsoe's FB people were self dispatching. He posted a plea for people to stop because it was hampering efforts. I watched an interview with the West medical director. He said West has a volunteer department and that they had 3 ambulances.


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## shfd739 (Apr 18, 2013)

JDub said:


> Before the explosion 6 volunteer firefighters responded and are all currently missing and presumed dead. *One West EMS member responded with an ambulance and several EMT students inside.* They died inside the blast also. I am not aware of any rescuers that died after the initial explosion.



This part just got me..and hard. Students. Not even certed and out practicing on their own. And probably from the local area and small towns and wanting to give back and do something with a little meaning to it. 

And they did. 

Godspeed to all of them. Thoughts and prayers to all involved. 

If you need anything let us know. The community is here for you.


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## lightsandsirens5 (Apr 19, 2013)

Thoughts and prayers will continue to be sent in the direction of West.

It was somewhat maddening to be sitting in my ambulance in the Longview area, listening to everything happen, and not bring able to do anything. Especially hearing calls on the radio over and over for the down firefighters. And not being able to do anything. Interestingly enough, I was listening McClennan County on the scanner already. 

As I'm a volunteer firefighter myself, it hit close to home, being another volunteer department, and also being in the general area of the country where I live.


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## RocketMedic (Apr 19, 2013)

shfd739 said:


> This part just got me..and hard. Students. Not even certed and out practicing on their own. And probably from the local area and small towns and wanting to give back and do something with a little meaning to it.
> 
> And they did.
> 
> ...



Damn. Kids, probably. 
This is a bad week.


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## Household6 (Apr 19, 2013)

shfd739 said:


> This part just got me..and hard. Students. Not even certed and out practicing on their own. And probably from the local area and small towns and wanting to give back and do something with a little meaning to it.
> 
> And they did.
> 
> ...



That tweaks my heart strings too. I know it's sometimes a reality, but your first call shouldn't have to be a MCI. I'm the oldest student by far in my classes, some of my classmates are just kids --19, 20 years old, not even old enough to buy a beer..

And those volunteer FFers.. No pay, no benefits, not even funeral bennies in some cases. Makes my heart sad to think of their families having to plan funerals for them.


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## xrsm002 (Apr 23, 2013)

West Volunteer Ambulance was my very first EMS agency to volunteer at, luckily I didn't know anyone that was killed, I do know one of their brothers though he was my FTO.


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## xrsm002 (Apr 23, 2013)

Household6 said:


> That tweaks my heart strings too. I know it's sometimes a reality, but your first call shouldn't have to be a MCI. I'm the oldest student by far in my classes, some of my classmates are just kids --19, 20 years old, not even old enough to buy a beer..
> 
> And those volunteer FFers.. No pay, no benefits, not even funeral bennies in some cases. Makes my heart sad to think of their families having to plan funerals for them.



Actually in Texas they are trying to get death benefits for volunteers in Texas


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## RocketMedic (May 23, 2013)

http://news.yahoo.com/special-report-poor-planning-left-texas-firefighters-unprepared-011904830.html

Called it. Ricky Rescue volunteers tunnel-visioned on the fire to "protect their community" and "we don't need that fancy paper learnin'", tried to rely on"years of experience" to cover up training deficits, and then take credit for not managing to totally kill off the department and town. Notice how the plant foreman himself tunnel-visioned in, while the pro FF tried to gain intel. 

This is why volunteer fire and EMS need to go.


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## shfd739 (May 23, 2013)

Rocketmedic40 said:


> http://news.yahoo.com/special-report-poor-planning-left-texas-firefighters-unprepared-011904830.html
> 
> Called it.



The "Itll never happen to us" mentality. They just became a "Have" and hopefully their hard lesson is learned by others.

My old FD had a fertilizer distribution business in our district. It was very much preplanned and we all knew if something happened there the orders were to set up supply line, aim the master streams and sit back and watch. From a safe distance.


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## Wheel (May 23, 2013)

shfd739 said:


> The "Itll never happen to us" mentality. They just became a "Have" and hopefully their hard lesson is learned by others.
> 
> My old FD had a fertilizer distribution business in our district. It was very much preplanned and we all knew if something happened there the orders were to set up supply line, aim the master streams and sit back and watch. From a safe distance.



It's sad that deaths could have been prevented by some planning. Hopefully small departments will learn this lesson so they don't have to learn it the hard way.


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## shfd739 (May 23, 2013)

Wheel said:


> It's sad that deaths could have been prevented by some planning. Hopefully small departments will learn this lesson so they don't have to learn it the hard way.



Thats my hope. A little bit of planning will pay dividends later and these deaths will not be for nothing.


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## RocketMedic (May 23, 2013)

Wheel said:


> It's sad that deaths could have been prevented by some planning. Hopefully small departments will learn this lesson so they don't have to learn it the hard way.



Or criticism of the response will be viewed as personal attacks on volunteers, "volunteers are the backbone of America", "BLS before ALS" and "EMTs save Paramedics" and "we can't afford big-city training, we do our best" and the improvements are ignored.


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## Wheel (May 23, 2013)

Rocketmedic40 said:


> Or criticism of the response will be viewed as personal attacks on volunteers, "volunteers are the backbone of America", "BLS before ALS" and "EMTs save Paramedics" and "we can't afford big-city training, we do our best" and the improvements are ignored.



True, but someone, somewhere, made a mistake here. I doubt it was individual volunteers, but this needs to be examined so that improvements can be made.


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## EMDispatch (May 23, 2013)

Rocketmedic40 said:


> Or criticism of the response will be viewed as personal attacks on volunteers, "volunteers are the backbone of America", "BLS   ALS" and "EMTs save Paramedics" and "we can't afford big-city training, we do our best" and the improvements are ignored.



Unfortunately, that's how it will go down... Even them big cities make huge mistakes that cost too many lives. NIOSH will release their report, it will be filed away and forgotten about by 90% of the public safety community. It's hard for the community and public at large to distinguish critical review from an attack


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## Achilles (May 23, 2013)

Wheel said:


> True, but someone, somewhere, made a mistake here. I doubt it was individual volunteers, but this needs to be examined so that improvements can be made.



Right, you can't blame this on one person. It's a combination of things, kind of like the fire triangle, you can't have fire w/o fuel, heat, and O2. 
If one of those is missing, it equals no fire. 
A fertilizer plant is not just built to explode. 
You have flaws in things (people are not perfect) we make mistakes in the medical field, legal field, construction field, we're not perfect. Our work is not perfect, things are going to break, snap, bend.
Then you have your people you run companies, those people aren't perfect either, their computers crash, they lose money one way or another, things just happen. 
We have people that overview these kinds of places OSHA, for example, has not perfect people working for them, inspecting fertilizer plants, giving fines to those that deserve them. Well I can say from expirence, that I have violated OSHA's rules again and again. (Everyone has.) and I've never received a fine from them. 
Then you have your fire dept, police and EMS (we'll just say they're combined for this. Perhaps the fire department was unprepared, that is equal everyone's fault, a chief asks his town for a millage for new rigs or w/e is needed and the town denies. Maybe there needs to be some changes for NFPA, things like this usually call for changes.

Since we're on topic of an MCI, (JP  mentioned this regarding Boston) Boston was ready, and people were killed, was West ready? Perhaps, perhaps not. They certainly didn't have dozens of ambulances on standby for the worst case scenario.  no fire, EMS service, or police department in the world is prepared 24/7/365 for a bomb to go off, or some other unpredictable catastrophe.


This too 


EMDispatch said:


> Unfortunately, that's how it will go down... Even them big cities make huge mistakes that cost too many lives. NIOSH will release their report, it will be filed away and forgotten about by 90% of the public safety community. It's hard for the community and public at large to distinguish critical review from an attack


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## RocketMedic (May 23, 2013)

There was a self-admitted and very real and dangerous training deficit here, guys. Yes, they did not know what was in the tanks, how much, or how volatile, except for a general idea- but the burden of that ignorance lies on them, from the chief down. The chief should have pressed the issue and identified the plant as a threat. The members of the department should have trained for something like this.

Ive run into this attitude plenty of times- "we don't get enough training time, so we will focus on the fundamentals". This leads to endless drills, repetitions of same, and contests to see who is "best" and boost egos...and the day slips away, training is forgotten, and the advanced  stuff falls by the wayside.

Fundamentals arent bad, but they are not the be-all of anything. Here, it sounds like they viewed the plant as an unknown, horrible danger that Had To Be Put Out Right Now, executed their drills to the best of their ability, and died en masse.


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## Handsome Robb (May 23, 2013)

Rocketmedic40 said:


> Or criticism of the response will be viewed as personal attacks on volunteers, "volunteers are the backbone of America", "BLS before ALS" and "EMTs save Paramedics" and "we can't afford big-city training, we do our best" and the improvements are ignored.



Interesting article.

Unfortunately, after reading the remarks in it from the WVFD personnel I'm afraid you're right.

10 LODDs is not acceptable. I don't think it's just WVFD to blame, there are lots of parties that failed to do what was required of them or to act in an appropriate manor when they recognized something wasn't being done correctly.


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## RocketMedic (May 24, 2013)

Jolly volly...


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## xrsm002 (May 24, 2013)

I use to volunteer with West EMS, its where i got my start, I know their station was actually a huge brick building with the ability to hold up to 6 ambulances they had a total of 4 at the time they had days where they needed that many being half a mile from the interstate, and are down to two. It was probably the biggest and nicest Ems station I have ever seen, had a full bathroom, conference room, crew quarters, big kitchen, they had also just payed the last payment on the building the week before the explosion. The Air Ecac base however was just a portable building, they would store the bird in one of our bays during bad weather.  As far as the WVFD, they knew what was in the tanks, as one of the members worked full time at the fertilizer plant.


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## EMDispatch (May 24, 2013)

Rocketmedic40 said:


> Jolly volly...



I happen to remember a large paid fire department that responded to a high rise emergency, for the second time in a decade, and failed to improve upon their first incident response. They over/self-dispatched to the point of absolutely no accountability, established their IC in the incident building, never resolved the interop and general communication issues from the previous incident, failed to set appropriate staging. They managed to efficiently and effectively evacuate most of the buildings, but failed to control and evacuate civilians out of the active incident area after successful evacuations... The end results were incredibly ugly and tragic.

Mistakes happen across the board, Chicago is exceptional successful at killing responders for stupid reasons. The reality is we all have blind spots in our response systems and training... Paid or volly...EMS,Fire, or PD


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## RocketMedic (May 24, 2013)

Dispatch, I'm not saying the pros are perfect, but they do seem far more willing to accept criticism than the 'Murika Volunteer crowd. 

Perhaps the bigger problem is the fire leadership culture?


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## Handsome Robb (May 24, 2013)

EMDispatch said:


> I happen to remember a large paid fire department that responded to a high rise emergency, for the second time in a decade, and failed to improve upon their first incident response. They over/self-dispatched to the point of absolutely no accountability, established their IC in the incident building, never resolved the interop and general communication issues from the previous incident, failed to set appropriate staging. They managed to efficiently and effectively evacuate most of the buildings, but failed to control and evacuate civilians out of the active incident area after successful evacuations... The end results were incredibly ugly and tragic.
> 
> Mistakes happen across the board, Chicago is exceptional successful at killing responders for stupid reasons. The reality is we all have blind spots in our response systems and training... Paid or volly...EMS,Fire, or PD



You're also talking about an event that killed upwards of 3000 people. Two transcontinental airliners into a pair of 110 story high rises is a little different than a fertilizer plant.


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## Aidey (May 24, 2013)

It is the same principle though Rob, they knew about many of the issues long before that happened, and none of them were corrected. Even not expecting the towers to come down, putting the ICP in one of the buildings went against a ton of safety standards. The ICP is never ever supposed to be in the red zone.


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## Achilles (May 24, 2013)

Aidey said:


> It is the same principle though Rob, they knew about many of the issues long before that happened, and none of them were corrected. Even not expecting the towers to come down, putting the ICP in one of the buildings went against a ton of safety standards. The ICP is never ever supposed to be in the red zone.



When you say "they", who are you referring to?


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## chaz90 (May 24, 2013)

I'm thinking this is a reference to FDNY.


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## Achilles (May 24, 2013)

chaz90 said:


> I'm thinking this is a reference to FDNY.



What about Bush, he knew about it...
He certainly had more admistrative control than the FDNY.


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## chaz90 (May 24, 2013)

More administrative control of FDNY regarding MCI plans for their own district? I'm not trying to talk politics here, but I don't quite understand how Bush had anything to do with the FDNY and NYPD responses to 9/11. I'm not aware of any sitting president that sits in the Oval Office and coordinates day to day operations of big city Fire departments...


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## Achilles (May 24, 2013)

chaz90 said:


> More administrative control of FDNY regarding MCI plans for their own district?*no. But as far as airport security, foreign relations, etc.* I'm not trying to talk politics here, but I don't quite understand how Bush had anything to do with the FDNY and NYPD responses to 9/11. I'm not aware of any sitting president that sits in the Oval Office and coordinates day to day operations of big city Fire departments...



It's certainly not all of one persons fault, but there are higher percentages on certain people. 
This is getting off topic though, I don't follow everything on OSHA besides they get their funding from the gov.


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## EMDispatch (May 24, 2013)

Rocketmedic40 said:


> Dispatch, I'm not saying the pros are perfect, but they do seem far more willing to accept criticism than the 'Murika Volunteer crowd.
> 
> Perhaps the bigger problem is the fire leadership culture?



A lot is leadership, especially in volly departments. The other part is that despite training and prep, you will run into situations you really aren't prepared for. How many agencies truly train for a large scale hazmat, or an MCI? Beyond that look at how accurate a reflectin of the real event most of those trainings are. Point and example, most airport MCI drills look little like what an actual event would look like. Drills are usually so scripted and controlled that they become inpossible to really screw up, and learn from.


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## mycrofft (May 24, 2013)

*Speaking of learning and preparedness...*

GO back NOW and review the beginning of this thread. See how data developed, changed, was added to by people with experience or not. Compare to what we know now.

And, hopefully, NO rinse and repeat; but, unavoidably so.

My local FD has their EOC in a temporary modular office/classroom under a quarter mile downwind of a major highway, hundreds of feet upwind from a very major train line through the state, about four miles downwind form another major Interstate, and a half mile from two enormous, gigantic propane storage tanks you can see for miles. Their former HQ was next to a stream which has an under-100 year flood rating. Oh well...


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## EMDispatch (May 24, 2013)

mycrofft said:


> GO back NOW and review the beginning of this thread. See how data developed, changed, was added to by people with experience or not. Compare to what we know now.
> 
> And, hopefully, NO rinse and repeat; but, unavoidably so.
> 
> My local FD has their EOC in a temporary modular office/classroom under a quarter mile downwind of a major highway, hundreds of feet upwind from a very major train line through the state, about four miles downwind form another major Interstate, and a half mile from two enormous, gigantic propane storage tanks you can see for miles. Their former HQ was next to a stream which has an under-100 year flood rating. Oh well...



Well said, our hindsight is always going to be 20/20. Today's the first time since the incident occurred that I've gone back and listened to the audio. Mistakes were made, but they did the best thu could, with what they had. I 'm sure if I posted some of my own major incident tapes here, it wouldn't always be pretty. But, we always get the job done as best we can, with hat we have, and learn for the next time. 
I can train on every incident I can imagine.... and in 15 minutes, I'll get a call for something I never expected (east coast earthquake). We prepare as best as we can, and we will still encounter the unexpected, or worse the unpredictable variable that turns the routine on its head.


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## mycrofft (May 25, 2013)

Three things one gets to learn from these deals. 

1. Who came through versus who didn't. Ask why.

2. If the plans failed, and some parts always do, was it because they were faulty, or based on a useless assumption, or because they hadn't been exercised and updated, etc.? (Common assumption usually proven wrong: central command continues intact and capable of handling information volume). (Remember, if it always works in an exercise, then it absolutely will not i a real disaster; it's tailored for exercises).

3. How do you feel and how, objectively, did you do about it?

And a fourth thing one MUST do:

4. Loudly accurately and promptly acclaim those who shone, especially the line folks. (Deskjockeys above the middle managers can wait for the annual dinner).


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