Seattle officials ready to respond to Colorado-like terror

In the wake of the massacre at a Colorado movie theater on
Friday, many are asking “what if?” While it is an almost
unthinkable scenario, officials in Seattle have a plan in
place to respond to such a tragedy.

A shooting like the massacre in Aurora, Colo., would
launch first responders into the city’s Mass Casualty
Incident plan, and would activate an Emergency Operations
Center at the request of the police incident commander to
provide logistical support. The center would act as a
central command post.

“What we realize is if we have a situation like in
Colorado […] this will become a regional problem. This
is not a Seattle problem,” said Kyle Moore, public
information officer for the Seattle Fire Department.
“We’re going to need the assistance and mutual aid of
other agencies.”

Under the MCI plan, first responders to a scene similar to
the shooting in Colorado would immediately set up a triage
center and call in ambulances and medic units from
surrounding areas. Moore said partners such as AMR, or
American Medical Response, could have 20 ambulances to the
scene within minutes.

Victims are categorized on a four-color scale depending on
the severity of their injuries.

Green patients are considered the “walking wounded,” Moore
said. They do not need immediate care. Victims who are
labeled yellow are more seriously injured, but can survive
without immediate transport to a hospital. Red patients
are critical and need immediate care. Finally, victims who
are labeled black were dead upon arrival.

While uncommon, it is a situation officials train for
regularly, with funding from the federal government’s
Department of Homeland Security.

“What the federal government realizes when you have a
disaster like this, a catastrophe like this, your first
responders are going to be your local fire and police
agencies,” Moore said. “They need to know what to do here
before the federal government can get here and deploy
resources.”

Earlier this year, Moore says a number of local agencies
participated in a mock shooting scenario in Bellevue that
included mass casualties carried out by multiple shooters
inside a school.

“We need to practice these things so that when they do
happen we are ready for them,” Moore said.

But as life-like as those drills may be, the patients are
just actors. The dead are not dead at all. And Moore says
it can sometimes be difficult to prepare or practice for
the chaos and emotions of a real-life tragedy like the one
in Colorado.

“You’re people and you get affected by the situations,” he
said of first responders. “You may not be affected when
it’s happening but it does affect you in the long term.”

And while Moore says we can never be fully prepared, he is
confident the city’s emergency plan would be highly
effective in a scenario like the one in Colorado. But
hopefully, he says, we never have to find out.