COMMENTARY | When a devastating earthquake hit the impoverished nation of Haiti in 2010, killing perhaps 300,000 people, the world reacted immediately to send in medical and rescue forces. But, in fact, with all their equipment and expertise, by the time the rescuers reached the mangled and remote scenes, they were able to save only 211 trapped victims, according to Dr. Isaac Ashkenazi, professor of Disaster Medicine, at Ben-Gurion University, Israel, and a world expert on disaster response and crisis leadership. Meanwhile, thousands of other victims were saved by Haitian citizens themselves, by unhurt or at least ambulatory bystanders who risked their own lives to pull others out of the rubble.
“The real first responders are not the official-with-uniform first responders,” Ashkenazi said. “The real first responders are the bystanders. Those that are in the event — they are saving lives.”
Ashkenazi spoke at a Forum event held at Harvard School of Public Health on Sept. 6 to look at the lessons learned in disaster response in the decade post-9/11. There have been so many disasters, both natural weather events and the malicious manmade disasters of terrorist attacks, since then: the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed 230,000 people in 14 countries; Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which inundated the historic city of New Orleans; the 2008 terrorist bombings across Mumbai; the earthquake, tsunami and radiation release in Japan last March; and, most recently, Hurricane Irene’s path of destruction here in the northeast United States.
In each of these events, ordinary citizens were the first responders – taking boats to flood waters to pull out trapped and drowning neighbors, helping the elderly climb away to higher ground, stanching the bloody wounds of the fallen with their own clothing and calling for aid after the bomb blasts. When deputy FEMA director Richard Serino arrived in Joplin, Mo., after the deadly tornado there in May, he reported that local rescuers and “the faith-based community” had already set up a rescue and shelter effort, lauding the resilience of the town. FEMA, he said, was going to be supporting that team effort, not replacing it, as search and rescue, cleanup and recovery continued.
In professional disaster response circles, where government emergency managers, police and firefighters and humanitarian workers plan for devastating scenarios, a new candor and reality check is gaining ground. As we have seen, through television reports, survivor video and desperate tweets, it is often two or three days or more before the hero rescuers are able to make it to scenes of vast devastation. No matter how meticulous the planning, how shiny the fire trucks, how great the will, the truth is that a natural or manmade disaster wipes out roads, airports, telecommunications and other infrastructure necessary to get aid to victims.
In the real world of disasters, the first responders are us. Emergency planners now have official monikers for ordinary people: if we are in the disaster area and are ambulatory or uninjured, we are no longer referred to as “victims” but as “survivors” or “active bystanders.” We are, in aggregate, “a resilient population.”
Public officials have learned a lot about citizen capabilities and now understand that disaster response preparation has to include us or else valuable rescue time is wasted. In my town of Newton, MA, a suburb of Boston, as Hurricane Irene approached, our mayor initiated the telephone warning system – a system prompted by the horror of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre. A robocall to our home phone instructed us to take in untethered objects that could be whipped about by wind (lawn furniture was mentioned – this being the suburbs!). We were told to stock a water supply in case the city’s water filtration system was overwhelmed and to check that we had batteries and flashlights, the small things that can make a big difference when power goes out in a major storm. We were given emergency numbers and asked to report fallen branches and wires, anything threatening public safety.
So I did some small things for my family; we touched base with our neighbors, we were ready for the worst and hoped for the best. But instead of cutting a path through Boston, Hurricane Irene suddenly veered west and walloped an unsuspecting Vermont including the college campus where my son had just moved in, equipped, at the last minute before he left our house, with a flashlight and some Gatorade.
Disaster Response, A Decade of Lessons Learned Post-9/11, The Forum at Harvard School of Public Health 9/6/11
ABC/WCVB TV, FEMA: Dealing With Disaster, 5/24/11