By Kristi L. Nelson
Knoxville News-Sentinel
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Sunday’s shooting at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church was handled quickly by church members and emergency first-responders. Reports said the suspect was in custody and the injured headed to nearby hospitals in a matter of minutes.
But what if a larger percentage of the 200-plus people packed into the church had been injured? That’s when an area-wide disaster plan would go into effect.
The Knoxville-Knox County Emergency Management Agency, using state and federal government guidelines, already has a plan for a mass crisis in the area. A couple of times a year, KEMA tests that plan; large-scale drills might include a tornado, earthquake, bioterrorism attack or roof collapsing on a Wal-Mart or concert venue.
But KEMA’s Local Emergency Planning Committee, which meets once a month, plans for community crises on all scales. The LEPC (http://knoxtnlepc.com) includes representatives from all area hospitals, area police and fire departments, Rural/Metro, the Rescue Squad, Red Cross, University of Tennessee, FBI and some private companies, including hazardous-waste cleanup professionals and chemical-producing firms.
The role of the committee is actually to coordinate different agencies and to make sure the appropriate agencies are aware of and responding to a particular crisis. An apartment fire last spring, for example, required not only shelter for displaced families but also interpreters, since some of the displaced spoke only Spanish.
In the case of Sunday’s shooting, “We made sure they had what they needed for that event,” said Colin Ickes, KEMA operations officer. “They had it under control in minutes.”
First responders typically will perform triage on victims, taking trauma victims to the University of Tennessee Medical Center, which is the area’s Level I trauma center. Victims with less serious injuries are distributed among other area hospitals; paramedics call ahead to emergency departments to see which hospitals have the staff and space to take them at the time.
In an event with large numbers of trauma victims, however, KEMA has identified trauma specialists at hospitals other than UTMC who can be called in to help with the most serious injuries. Hospitals - even those owned by competing health systems - would also share staff in the event of a major community disaster.
“Some places aren’t quite as fortunate as us, as far as having all these agencies work so well together,” Ickes said.
The LEPC conducts several small-scale drills a year; this spring, for example, members completed an earthquake drill involving all area hospitals and an anthrax drill that tested the local post offices’ response. Both drills went well, Ickes said. KEMA also holds a number of drills with the Department of Energy in Oak Ridge, he said.
Individual hospitals also have plans for disaster response, both external and internal (such as a hostage situation), and plan drills several times a year to prepare.