Back from Mississippi

SafetyPro2

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Just wanted to let you all know that I and the rest of my DMAT team (CA-1) got back from Mississippi last night.

As you know, we got our Alert and subsequent Activation orders on Sunday, August 28. Most of the team (including myself) flew out of LAX for Memphis on Monday morning and we were actually in the air when the hurricane made landfall. 6 of our team members drove our three trucks with our supply cache.

We got to Memphis and spent the night there along with a dozen or so other DMATs from around the country. Tuesday morning, we headed out in a 40-50 vehicle convoy from Memphis to Camp Shelby, a National Guard base just south of Hattiesburg, MS. The road crews were literally clearing the fallen trees in front of us at some points. We staged at Shelby, which was itself without power or potable water. Assessment teams were out finding areas for DMATs to go into, and some teams got sent out right away. We were initially ordered out with another team on Wednesday to go to a hospital in Port St. Louis, but our team was then held back and we ended up waiting until our trucks arrived last Wednesday. Thursday morning, we got our final orders and were sent to the Biloxi High School, which was functioning as both a shelter and hospital.

We arrived in Biloxi and tied in with AMR and the Mississippi State Guard (not National Guard) who were running the medical side of the shelter (the Red Cross ran the general population shelter). When we arrived, we had several hundred patients in the halls of the school. There was only minimal power from the school's emergency generator and other portable generators. Three USCG helicopters came in within the first couple of hours we were there to airlift out the most critical patients. We spent the next week and a half treating those paitents that we could and stabilizing and transferring the rest out to other facilities.

The Navy sent in a large number of personnel from the USS Bataan, the USS Whidbey Island and the USS Shreveport to help with both the medical side and the food services for the shelter. I think the Navy food was one of the biggest morale boosters for everyone in the shelter. We also had medical personnel from around the country arrive, including quite a few from the Mississippi Department of Public Health. We even had a group of Royal Dutch Navy personnel come through two days, but they were assigned to other areas.

By this past Sunday, we were down to only a handfull of patients (mostly long-term care patients), and we handed off the medical side of the shelter to a smaller DMAT strike team. We drove back to Memphis on Sunday and flew home yesterday.

It was definitely quite an experience and I'm sure I'll have more to share in the coming days (including some pictures when I get those), but for now, just wanted to give you all a brief update and let you know that I'm back home safe and settling back into normal life.

Chris
 

CaptainPanic

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Glad to see you back, my hat goes off to those who were able to go down and help people in need in the the most unspeakable conditions.

-Dix
 

MMiz

I put the M in EMTLife
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Welcome back!

I had no clue you were going. I click the "View New Posts" button every time I visit the site, but it seems to miss a LOT of posts.

It's amazing what you did down there. Were you mainly working with AMR? Were they local to the area or from all over?

How was the security situation? Overall morale? Did you have any "Oh crap I want my ambulance and civilization back" moments?

Good to have you back safely :)
 

Chimpie

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Welcome back Chris. We missed ya.

Chimp
 

Wingnut

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:D :D Welcome Home :D :D

It's good to have you back!
 

ffemt8978

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Velkommen back!

One back, two more to go.
 
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SafetyPro2

SafetyPro2

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Originally posted by MMiz@Sep 13 2005, 05:13 PM
Welcome back!

I had no clue you were going. I click the "View New Posts" button every time I visit the site, but it seems to miss a LOT of posts.

It's amazing what you did down there. Were you mainly working with AMR? Were they local to the area or from all over?

How was the security situation? Overall morale? Did you have any "Oh crap I want my ambulance and civilization back" moments?

Good to have you back safely :)
AMR had two of their emergency operations folks at the shelter. They were coordinating many of the logistical/supply issues, hospital availability, and of course, transfers into and out of the shelter. These guys were local (one was actually living in the shelter because his house had been destroyed). The ambulance crews were a mix of both local and out of the area.

Security was pretty good. There were a few issues that I'm not at liberty to discuss, but we were initially provided with an officer from the Federal Protective Service (FPS) as our "force protection", and were later supplemented with three more FPS officers. FPS basically provides security for Federal sites and also provides dignitary protection (for those who don't have Secret Service coverage). They used to be part of GSA, but were transferred to Homeland Security and are now officially tasked with providing force protection for FEMA during disasters.

We also had Biloxi PD and personnel from several other PDs there (including a couple of Indiana state troopers) and towards the end, a contingent of MPs from the Alabama National Guard.
 

Summit

Critical Crazy
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Welcome back. Glad you are safe.

In other news, Baton Rouge EOC order 6000 ped body bags... the news is whitewashing this.

What a gargantuan cluster.
 

CaptainPanic

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Originally posted by SafetyPro@Sep 13 2005, 04:13 PM
.

By this past Sunday, we were down to only a handfull of patients (mostly long-term care patients), and we handed off the medical side of the shelter to a smaller DMAT strike team. We drove back to Memphis on Sunday and flew home yesterday.

Chris
Chris,
By chance was this small DMAT strike team from Arkansas????? Just curious. The AR-1 DMAt was assigned to the superdome.......

-Capn
 
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SafetyPro2

SafetyPro2

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Originally posted by CaptainPanic+Sep 15 2005, 07:33 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (CaptainPanic @ Sep 15 2005, 07:33 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-SafetyPro@Sep 13 2005, 04:13 PM
.

By this past Sunday, we were down to only a handfull of patients (mostly long-term care patients), and we handed off the medical side of the shelter to a smaller DMAT strike team. We drove back to Memphis on Sunday and flew home yesterday.

Chris
Chris,
By chance was this small DMAT strike team from Arkansas????? Just curious. The AR-1 DMAt was assigned to the superdome.......

-Capn [/b][/quote]
No, the strike team that took over from us was from PA-1. The teams operating in Mississippi were under a seperate management team than the ones in Louisiana, so you didn't see much shifting from one state to the other.

The teams we had in our area (that I can remember) were FL-1, FL-4, IL-2 (Mental Health), MI-1, MO-1, NJ-1, NC-1, OH-5 and TN-1, plus DMORT Region V, VMAT-2 and NMRT-East

CA-6, which is our Bay Area team, was also at the Superdome for awhile, and CA-4 from San Diego was at the New Orleans Convention Center.
 

Jon

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Originally posted by SafetyPro+Sep 14 2005, 07:50 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (SafetyPro @ Sep 14 2005, 07:50 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-MMiz@Sep 13 2005, 05:13 PM
Welcome back!

I had no clue you were going. I click the "View New Posts" button every time I visit the site, but it seems to miss a LOT of posts.

It's amazing what you did down there. Were you mainly working with AMR? Were they local to the area or from all over?

How was the security situation? Overall morale? Did you have any "Oh crap I want my ambulance and civilization back" moments?

Good to have you back safely :)
AMR had two of their emergency operations folks at the shelter. They were coordinating many of the logistical/supply issues, hospital availability, and of course, transfers into and out of the shelter. These guys were local (one was actually living in the shelter because his house had been destroyed). The ambulance crews were a mix of both local and out of the area. [/b][/quote]
I stayed in the stae of Louisiana the whole time, but made it to both of the "special needs shelters" (Baton Rouge and Alexandria) that were open during my time there.

I'm sure you ran into some of the folks out of my camp in Baton Rouge.

Also.... a question.... PA DMAT-1 - would the great Dr. David Jaslow be a part of that group???? Very good guy.
 
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SafetyPro2

SafetyPro2

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Originally posted by MedicStudentJon@Sep 18 2005, 05:53 PM
Also.... a question.... PA DMAT-1 - would the great Dr. David Jaslow be a part of that group???? Very good guy.
I honestly don't know. I was so busy finishing up paperwork (somehow I got assigned to be the keeper of the timesheets and ICS-214 forms too) and helping get the truck's loaded that I didn't get to talk to any of the PA-1 folks. I only knew where they were from by seeing their shirts. :D
 
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