In recent years, terrorism has become an everyday threat in the United States. As a result, many agencies and organizations have formed disaster plans in the event of a weapons of mass destruction event.
One of these organizations, the Omaha Metropolitan Medical Response System (OMMRS) has worked since 1998 to prepare the medical community in case such an event occurs.
What is OMMRS?
OMMRS comprises more than 200 members representing more than 70 different organizations in the fields including, but not limited to: emergency management, public health, fire departments, law enforcement, all metro area hospitals, community agencies such as the Red Cross, United Way and the Salvation Army, and volunteer management.
“A multitude of things prompted plans to be developed for the community — the Oklahoma City bombing, the anthrax attacks, the World Trade Center,” said Jamie Moore, United Way vice president of volunteer and community services.
Developing the program
In 1997, the Omaha Fire Department, in conjunction with the Department of Defense, presented two programs for first responders and hospitals, said Phyllis Dutton, co-chair of OMMRS. Six months later, a chemical tabletop exercise was performed to evaluate the readiness of Omaha hospitals.
“We walked through and evaluated what different groups would do and how they would respond,” Dutton said. “We realized, as hospitals, we were not set up to do decontamination. Now we are prepared and trained.”
Organizing disaster plans
For better coordination, co-chairs were elected in 1999 and the organization applied for federal funding. In August 2000, OMMRS received $600,000 in federal funding to help prepare the community.
Committees were formed to ensure that different aspects of an event were addressed. OMMRS now has 16 sub-committees working on plans for various issues such as communications (media), mass fatalities, public health, pharmacy, law enforcement, mental health and volunteer management.
The committees adviser OMMRS, helping to develop procedures to keep the public safe and informed in the event of such a disaster.
Dutton said the hospitals signed an agreement to share resources, supplies and pharmaceuticals, and personnel with each other.
Keeping people informed
“If we did have a disaster, we have a media communications committee. The Health Department, in most cases, would take the lead if the disaster was health-related,” Moore said. “We would keep people informed through news conferences, TV, radio, flyers, press releases to newspapers and 2-1-1/First Call For Help (FCFH).” 2-1-1/FCFH is a health and information referral service provided 24 hours a day through the United Way.
To keep track and assess the system, steering committee meetings are held monthly.
Volunteers needed
Not only are medical and media professionals needed, but the help of the public also is needed. OMMRS works with the United Way of the Midlands Volunteer Resource Center. Moore helps with the recruitment and management of volunteers.
The United Way has developed a skills database to assess volunteers and their expertise. Skills of the volunteers would be evaluated and volunteers would be matched with interests, abilities and where they are needed.
“We want to prevent a disaster within a disaster with volunteers. We have about 400 people in our skills database. That’s a success, but we need many, many more people,” Moore said.
Recruitment continues
Moore added that the United Way plans to continue recruitment. For example, volunteers are needed to supplement police officers and make desk officers available to work on the streets in case of an emergency.
“The strength of our OMMRS has been the involvement of the community agencies that would be impacted by a major disaster working together as a unit to have a planned, integrated and coordinated response to any disaster in the area,” Dutton said.
“We want to get the metropolitan medical community the best prepared it can be, so if we have an attack, we can immediately spring into action,” Moore said. “It’s like insurance. If it [an attack] doesn’t happen, at least we know it’s there.”