Oklahoma City Bombing: April 19, 1995
The morning of April 19th, 1995 changed the United States forever. On that morning, the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was attacked and destroyed by a homegrown terrorist. This event shook the US and forced the country to start thinking in terms of potential terror events, specifically ones carried out by US citizens. Two years earlier the World Trade Center was attacked by outsiders and caused America to begin to think about foreign threats. The Oklahoma City bombing was a horrific event, but plenty of lessons were learned from it. This event went down in history as one of the worst attacks ever on US soil.
The Oklahoma City bombing occurred on the morning of April 19, 1995 at 09:02amTwo …show more content…
The initial hazard was further collapse of the building. During the rescue efforts four additional people died as a result of falling rubble (Keating, 1995). Another hazard was massive concrete slabs hanging overhead in the north and east sides of the building. The Menlo Park US&R Task Force successfully secured the slabs on April 28, 1995 (The Oklahoma Department of Civil, n.d.). Another issue was potential hazardous materials being released on site. The resolution for this was required personal protective equipment or PPE on scene. One firefighter said, “you didn’t have to wear personal protective equipment, but if you didn’t wear PPE, you didn’t work on site” (Jackson et al., 2002, p. 46). These hazards posed various problems and concerns in addition to the initial obvious …show more content…
The main gigantic lesson learned from the Murrah bombing was the use of the Incident Command Structure (ICS). The ICS foundation was formed so for when multiple groups and agencies respond to the same event. It creates a uniform and standardized order so that everyone can complete his or her tasks efficiently and correctly. The way that the agencies and groups worked together in a union really set the standard for how disasters and scenes should be run ("Lessons Learned Incident Command," n.d.). Another lesson learned was that in the case of an event it is imperative to have the contact information for all emergency officials and personnel so that their calls can be prioritized. The sheer volume of calls received was overwhelming in itself and in addition, some of the official’s cell phone numbers had changed and not been updated, so their calls were not prioritized (Larson, Metzger, & Cahn, 2004). Having the prioritization system will definitely help a scene run smoothly and ensure that all communications can be received. Another issue that arose was that the HEAR radio system failed during this disaster. The lesson learned from this is the system needs to be tested on a very regular basis. Implementing an emergency system is important but making sure that it is current is what can really make a difference. An additional problem that arose was identifying all of the volunteers and rescuers at the time. They
The morning of April 19th, 1995 changed the United States forever. On that morning, the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was attacked and destroyed by a homegrown terrorist. This event shook the US and forced the country to start thinking in terms of potential terror events, specifically ones carried out by US citizens. Two years earlier the World Trade Center was attacked by outsiders and caused America to begin to think about foreign threats. The Oklahoma City bombing was a horrific event, but plenty of lessons were learned from it. This event went down in history as one of the worst attacks ever on US soil.
The Oklahoma City bombing occurred on the morning of April 19, 1995 at 09:02amTwo …show more content…
The initial hazard was further collapse of the building. During the rescue efforts four additional people died as a result of falling rubble (Keating, 1995). Another hazard was massive concrete slabs hanging overhead in the north and east sides of the building. The Menlo Park US&R Task Force successfully secured the slabs on April 28, 1995 (The Oklahoma Department of Civil, n.d.). Another issue was potential hazardous materials being released on site. The resolution for this was required personal protective equipment or PPE on scene. One firefighter said, “you didn’t have to wear personal protective equipment, but if you didn’t wear PPE, you didn’t work on site” (Jackson et al., 2002, p. 46). These hazards posed various problems and concerns in addition to the initial obvious …show more content…
The main gigantic lesson learned from the Murrah bombing was the use of the Incident Command Structure (ICS). The ICS foundation was formed so for when multiple groups and agencies respond to the same event. It creates a uniform and standardized order so that everyone can complete his or her tasks efficiently and correctly. The way that the agencies and groups worked together in a union really set the standard for how disasters and scenes should be run ("Lessons Learned Incident Command," n.d.). Another lesson learned was that in the case of an event it is imperative to have the contact information for all emergency officials and personnel so that their calls can be prioritized. The sheer volume of calls received was overwhelming in itself and in addition, some of the official’s cell phone numbers had changed and not been updated, so their calls were not prioritized (Larson, Metzger, & Cahn, 2004). Having the prioritization system will definitely help a scene run smoothly and ensure that all communications can be received. Another issue that arose was that the HEAR radio system failed during this disaster. The lesson learned from this is the system needs to be tested on a very regular basis. Implementing an emergency system is important but making sure that it is current is what can really make a difference. An additional problem that arose was identifying all of the volunteers and rescuers at the time. They