Feds to Restrict Volunteers at Disaster Sites

[RescueKujo 130]

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AP Online

via NewsEdge Corporation

NEW YORK_Retiree Gene O'Brien hurried to the World Trade Center site after Sept. 11, 2001, as a volunteer helping to shuttle supplies to police and fire workers. Some days, his only ID to get into the disaster site was a tattoo on his forearm.

"A couple times I showed them my Marine tattoo, and they said go ahead," recalled O'Brien, adding that he and other volunteers also came up with their own makeshift identification cards.

"We didn't forge anything, we just made them up with our own pictures and at one point we copied a UPC code off a Pepsi can and they were as good as gold," said the Scarsdale resident.

It might not be so easy the next time disaster strikes.

In an effort to provide better control and coordination, the federal government is launching an ambitious ID program for rescue workers to keep everyday people from swarming to a disaster scene. A prototype of the new first responder identification card is already being issued to fire and police personnel in the Washington, D.C., area.

Proponents say the system will get professionals on scene quicker and keep untrained volunteers from making tough work more difficult.

But they also know it is a touchy subject, particularly for those devoted to helping in moments of crisis.

"Wow, how in the world do we say this without love and respect in our hearts?" said deputy assistant U.S. Fire Administrator Charlie Dickinson.

"Everybody wants to come to the fight, so to speak, and no one wants to step back and say 'No, I can't do this.' The final coup de grace was the World Trade Center. Hundreds came that were never asked," Dickinson said. "Good intentions, good hearts, and it was extremely difficult for the fire department and the other departments to deal with them."

The Federal Emergency Management Agency came up with the idea after the World Trade Center attack and Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when countless Americans rushed to help - unasked, undirected, and sometimes unwanted.

Many of those volunteers angrily dispute the notion they were a burden. They insist that in many instances they were able to deliver respirators, hard hats, and protective boots to workers when no one else seemed able.

Ground zero volunteer Rhonda Shearer and her daughter launched a fast-moving supply system that bypassed regular channels, often infuriating city officials.

Even as she delivered box trucks packed with supplies over months of recovery work, she increasingly ended up in a cat-and-mouse game with New York City's police and emergency management agency.

Shearer, 53, said the experience convinced her that agencies are ill-equipped to handle major disasters - but don't want outsiders pointing out their failings.

Similar frustrations arose after Katrina, when people were shocked that the government struggled to take basic supplies such as water to the worst areas.

"They're more worried about keeping volunteers out than doing an analysis of what really went wrong," Shearer said. "Independent citizens need to be involved, where we have no ax to grind or cross to bear. But we will tell the truth, and we will tell what we see and bear witness to the incompetence."

Dickinson, the federal fire official, said the government is not trying to discourage volunteers, but he thinks there should come a time, within a few days of a disaster, when civilians step back and let the professionals take control.

Supporters say the ID cards could be checked at a disaster area with a card-reader device and used to verify a person's unique skills. For example, if police officers have been trained to handle hazardous materials, officials at the scene could deploy them to an area where their skills would be best put to use.

For reasons ranging from general safety to protection from lawsuits, construction and demolition companies want to see a disaster ID card program succeed.

Mike Taylor, executive director of the National Demolition Association, said his industry is talking with aides to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger about putting it in place in his state.

"If California goes ahead and does that, it will flow across the country. This is a really smart idea by someone in the Bush administration to be able to control access to the site and frankly, make sure there are no untrained people," Taylor said. "If somebody goes running down to the site, you have to stop and ask them, wait, are they certified to do this work?"

<<AP Online -- 09/03/07>>

Haven't had or heard of much trouble with this in the major wildland base camps I've been assigned to, so I don't know where I stand. Any thoughts?

[Truck4 48]

Only took 6 years to come up with this. If civilians want to help, they can join a CERT team, Red Cross, Salvation Army......

There's been so much talk about how easy it would be to initiate a secondary attack by blending in with civilian volunteers, yet it took 6 years to put something on paper.

[SageVigiles 1,194]

Yeah, I joined a CERT Team, so now if my FD doesn't get called, my PD Explorer post is almost entirely CERT qualified, so we can help out and still be covered.

[Guest seanc]

i agree with truck4, if people really want to help they need to get certified, their is no point in having a mixed group of trained and untrained personnel at a scene, personally i would much prefer being able to ask someone randomly and know that they have some certification for that job, instead of hunting around for someone who is

[IzzyEng4 427]

Its controlling people just like we would do at a fire scene with our own personnel. Trouble is that too many people want to help and just end up "free-lancing" and there is no accountability. I agree with it and yes people should be certified to do so.

[MoFire390 118]

Its not only that a few months ago there was a drill in the Tri-Village an incidnet took place in which a person wearing an EMS shirt walked up and sat in an ambulace and took off. So with that said, IT IS ABOUT DANG time that someone put this on paper. becuase you never know when something like 9/11 is going to happen again.

[smwells 7]

I am all for a ID system, the problem is who is going to manage it? At what point is someone going to validate your ID (At the site, 5 blocks away, ??)

I will agree there was A LOT! of freelancing during 9/11, but can someone really tell me a checkpoint system would have worked on a large scale event like that?? The city forgot about 90 ambulances staged for action, and they were part of the system.

I was 5 blocks away at a triage site at 388 Greennwich St during 9/11, had 100's of bystanders from the building around me volunteering to help. Short of a sign-in sheet and notation of skills it was a "free for all".. I am sure it would not have worked at that location, Most cetainly would not have worked at Ground Zero.

[Guest partyrock]

immediately after any incident command and control is going to be somewhere between scattered and non-existent. The bigger the incident the longer it takes to get things under control. Thats just the way it is. At least this system will allow you to at some point clear everyone out and get some control over the situation. There were two huge problems after the dust settled on 9/11. Trying to create a perimeter and trying to figure out who was with who. This will at least simplify the second problem. There have been procedures developed to try and secure the next disaster. We'll see how this all works out the next time around. Until then we can only speculate.