Multi-Agency Emergency Event Paper

Multi-Agency Emergency Response. On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, the terror groups al-Qaeda executed an attack on the World Trade Centre Twin Towers in New York. They did so by hijacking two local airplanes and flying them into the buildings, causing two separate explosions. One of the aircrafts belonging to American Airlines had departed from Boston, and the notification about the hostile takeover was realized too late. Timothy Doke – the then vice president of corporate communications, responded by rushing to the company’s strategic command center (Argenti n.p). The militants had also captured two other planes one of which never reached its target and the other was used to attack the headquarters of the U.S. military (Bullock , Haddow and Coppola 36). The event saw the loss of over 3000 lives – both occupants of the building and rescue personnel.
The New York City Fire and Police Departments, Ports Authority Police and other medical emergency crew arrived at the site within minutes of the first crash. They immediately started evacuation procedures in the staircases and parking lots of the buildings, as well as the subway station and surrounding areas. The second plane hit while the teams were in action taking out several casualties. More service persons had to be sent to the scene; the fire department, for example, had to recall all members who had been relieved of their duty to assist in the operation (FDNY Report 35).
The chief of police department raised the alert to level 4 to mobilize as many staff as were available.

Their primary role was the evacuation and aiding injured victims. According to the Fire Department Report (28), the chief of Battalion1 (B1) witnessed the plane hitting the building and raised the second alarm – a request for deployment of 19 pieces of apparatus and 11 chiefs. Where a battalion chief is in charge of about 200 persons, the figures translate to over 2000 staff summoned to work in the evacuation. The hierarchy trickles down to the captain and the lieutenant who leads a unit of officers. The sizes of units vary from three to six persons depending on the role: engine, ladder, rescue, squad or hazardous materials companies.
Decision-making during the crisis was based on standard operating procedures which create order. The chief of B1 was instituted as the incident commander, and he operated from the Incident Command Post (ICP). All the directives were issued in order of importance, life safety, incident stabilization, and property conservation. The Field Communications Unit was the intermediary in spreading the commands to the specific groups concerned. It greatly facilitated reception of feedback and making judgments as instructions were issued, and updates of the status on the ground kept trickling in. Monitoring of equipment and their performance, as well as shortcomings, enabled reinforcement to be set where necessary.
Among the setbacks that the rescue agencies faced was falling debris. The Fire Department Report (28) states that the ICP had to be relocated to a site further from the building due to the high rate of descending fragments. The communications and tracking also eventually broke down and led to a lack of accountability on where personnel and equipment were positioned. This occurrence led to the underutilization of resources and difficulty in explaining to the firefighters’ families about their loved ones’ whereabouts (41). There was also poor interdepartmental coordination with the NYPD and PAPD leading to more significant inefficiency.
The incident, though catastrophic, paved the way for better security measures such as the establishment of Homeland Security. Remedies to structural constructions also ensure that they are stable in case of an impact. These precautions make the US a fort of sorts today that can withstand any attempts of the breach.

Works Cited
Argenti P. Crisis Communication: Lessons from 9/11. Harvard Business Review. 2012. https://hbr.org/2002/12/crisis-communication-lessons-from-911 Accessed 5th Feb 2018
Bullock J., Haddow G. and Coppola D. Introduction to Homeland Security: Principles of All-Hazards Risk Management. 4th Edition. Elsevier Inc 2012
FDNY Fire Operations response on September 11. http://www.nyc.gov/html/fdny/pdf/mck_report/fire_operations_response.pdf. Accessed 5th Feb 2018.