MAHONING VALLEY What to do in a disaster

Local emergency officials got a lesson in handling mass-casualty events.
By IAN HILL
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
BOARDMAN -- The room was quiet as Mike Gedert flipped through the pictures of destruction at "mass fatality incidents."
One picture on the movie screen showed a car that had been turned over and crushed. Another displayed trees that were still smoking from a recent fire. Still others showed charred and mutilated corpses.
"It's probably something you won't forget in the next day or so," said Gedert, a policy board chairman for the Ohio Funeral Directors' Association Mortuary Response Team.
Gedert was working with Bob Shank, the deputy team leader for region five of the federal-level Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team, to help prepare local emergency officials to deal with mass-fatality incidents. About 130 emergency officials from Mahoning, Trumbull, and Columbiana counties attended the class led by Gedert and Shank on Monday in the auditorium of the DeBartolo building at Youngstown State University. The Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team is sponsored by the United States Public Health Service and the Office of Emergency Preparedness. Region five includes Ohio.
Response plan: During the six-hour course, Gedert and Shank described how local officials should respond to mass fatality events. Gedert defined a mass fatality incident as a disaster that results in more bodies than local resources can handle easily, creating the need for teamwork.
The county coroner is responsible for coordinating the recovery and identification of the deceased, Gedert said.
Walter Duzzny, the director of the Mahoning County Emergency Management Agency, said that the county coroner can ask for help from the county's mass fatality incident group if more than five people are killed in a disaster. The team includes local police, firefighters and other emergency officials who would assist with the recovery effort.
Federal and state emergency officials also could be called on to help, Gedert and Shank said.
Following the disaster, corpses should be placed in body bags and taken to makeshift morgues where they will be identified by doctors and other specialists.
Mahoning County officials said their morgue would be in the Ohio National Guard Armory in Austintown, while the Trumbull County morgue would be at the U.S. Air Force Reserve base in Vienna and the Columbiana County morgue would be in the county jail.
Once identified, the deceased are retrieved at the morgues by representatives of local funeral homes.
Families: Gedert and Shank also said that local officials should create a "family assistance center" to meet the needs of the families of those killed in the disaster. The center could be operated by representatives of the Red Cross and Salvation Army, as well as other clergy and counselors.
"The impression of your whole entire operation will come from how these families are treated," Gedert said. "These people have taken a major hit, and it's very important to be patient with them."
Duzzny said that he feels Mahoning County officials can have a morgue and family assistance center set up four hours after a disaster.
Gene Tareshawty, an investigator for the Mahoning County coroner's office, said he thinks local officials "have been ahead of the curve" when it comes to preparing for a disaster.
However, Tareshawty added that officials need to keep planning for numerous fatalities.
"They need to be vigilant," he said.
hill@vindy.com