If there was a lesson for law enforcement in the August tornado that raged through Salt Lake City it might be this: The disaster response protocols that police officers and firefighters train for really do work.
But the tornado also pointed out needed changes in emergency response to future disasters, changes that agencies already are working toward making.Mutual aid agreements are being worked out between jurisdictions to take care of the person-to-person problems seen during the tornado response. And all police and fire agencies in the state are beginning to implement a state mandate, which predates the tornado, to have their radios tuned to 800 megahertz by 2002 -- one frequency for easier interagency communication.
"We are working very hard to put all of those pieces in place," Salt Lake City Fire Lt. Cory Lyman said. "We are making progress. We are a whole bunch closer to where we need to be than we were six months ago, and six months from now, you'll be amazed at what we can do."
Communication breakdowns reportedly caused problems for police and fire officials trying to dispatch rescue teams to tornado victims in need, but better technology, or having every department on the same dispatch frequency, wouldn't necessarily solve all the problems, Lyman said.
"It can solve some of the problems, but I think it's kind of overrated," Lyman said. "The problem is a lot bigger than that. There are command and control issues that have little to do with radio frequencies."
Command and control was the real issue during the tornado, he said. As personnel from various jurisdictions showed up to help, not everybody was talking to the right people.
Salt Lake City Police Lt. Phil Kirk, who was the incident commander that day, agreed.
The hardest part of the incident response was handling the hundreds of police and fire crews from outside agencies that descended on the crushed city -- all on different radio frequencies, he said.
"We had to come up with a game plan to use all the help that was just coming in droves," Kirk said.
At fire station no. 2, for example, much needed Davis County Fire crews waited, unable to communicate with city dispatchers or individual fire crews. When fire Capt. Dennis Goudy's crew made a quick stop back at the station they found the Davis crews and gave them a written list of addresses where rescuers were needed.
"We had a lot of help but weren't able to track it because we were all on different radio frequencies," Goudy said.
The crush of tornado-related 911 calls was also difficult to handle. With the city's lines overloaded, the Valley Emergency Communications Center handled some 200 overflow 911 calls.
Still, Goudy said, the communication and logistical challenges in the tornado's aftermath don't mean things didn't work.
While casualties soared to more than 100, only one man died and the 43 people most seriously injured all were transported to hospitals within the "golden hour" -- a colloquialism used by those in the life-saving business for the first hour that often determines life or death for trauma victims, Goudy said.