Think of a disaster situation like a dance.
The one leading is the disaster itself — in our case, the tornado which hit Dothan Monday. At first, the emergency response team made up of firefighters, police, paramedics and so many more personnel are following.
Here’s the trick: the emergency response team has to take over the dance. They have to become the leaders.
In the case of Monday’s Waltz of Weather Chaos, it was brief before leaders had control of the dance — and thus, control of the situation.
Dothan Fire Chief Larry Williams had the tempo before it even started.
The first step: knowing when a potentially disastrous situation is on the way.
“We knew that we had a squall line coming in,” he said. “One of the things I try to do is keep the City Commission and the department heads aware of what’s happening with severe weather, so we started all that really early.”
He said the fire department started with an extensive list of pre-planning measures: making sure trucks were fueled, making sure all the equipment was in order, checking that reserves in the shop were in service and ready.
“Just basic management to be able to handle the increase in possible call volume. That’s the number one thing,” Williams said.
He said all eyes were on the tornado warning between Enterprise in Daleville when officials began monitoring weather more closely so everybody was “ready to rock and roll.”
That’s standard procedure — if a tornado warning pops in an adjacent county, especially if the same storm is headed our way, they double down on the monitoring and begin doing more preparations.
But about the time they get situated, the power cuts.
A generator failed.
By the time everyone is beginning to get hip to the situation, they’re running blind.
As if in some cable TV drama, dispatch immediately tells firemen about an outdoor fire… and the roof caving in at Dothan Preparatory Academy.
“That’s all we knew,” Williams said. “We did not know we had a tornado warning, or if a tornado had touched down.”
He said it was all of a minute and a half before the warning was issued, as any potential rotation was wrapped in rain.
Battalion Chief Shan Ash called in to tell her colleagues she was looking at what appeared to be tornado damage and debris off Lafayette Street.
Williams said everyone scattered.
With the information the storm had hit DPA, he instructed his team to begin pulling together more staff to put on reserve engines in case of the need for advanced life support.
Williams headed to DPA — where he had a grandson.
He was thinking of getting in touch with emergency management, and what they’ll do about power, and where they’ll send trucks — but he was also getting calls from his wife and his daughter.
He said he was a little apprehensive getting on the scene for worry of his family, but he knew he had a job to do.
“We get nervous, too,” he said. “We get worried about our family, and we’re not as clear-minded until we make sure they’re okay when we know they could be involved. But I’m just so programmed on what to do, I just do it.”
Chief Pete Webb was already on the way to the Dothan Utilities Emergency Operations Center, intending to help coordinate between downed power lines and blocked roads and feed all that information back to other agencies; but Webb caught the dispatch about DPA and responded there first, establishing a command.
By the time Williams arrived at the school, Webb informed him everything was beginning to look clear; they had everybody identified and had found the five minor injuries.
And, Williams’ grandson was safe.
“When I heard that, I went, wooh!” Williams breathed a sigh of relief. “I felt good.”
——————————
Thus began the protocol all incident response teams in the country use: L.I.P. That stands for Life safety, Incident stabilization and Property protection. It’s listed by priority.
“The first priority, from a car wreck to a house fire to a tornado, is life safety,” Williams said. “We’re going to do everything, but first thing we’re going to do, any incident we go to, we’re going to verify there is nobody that is trapped, there is nobody injured, there is nobody critical. We’re going to make sure we got everybody out of whatever structure, so we do that. We call it an all-clear.”
Police and Fire began going floor-to-floor, room-to-room, clearing the building of anyone who may still have lingered.
Williams knew the next move was to prepare for all the calls coming in from the neighborhoods in the path of the storm.
His team established an area command and a grid pattern to begin going door-to-door in the areas with major damage, clearing the neighborhoods the same way they cleared the school, but on a larger scale.
“We’re looking for any injuries, any fatalities, any victims,” he said.
When that’s done, the next step is incident stabilization. That’s getting in control of the incident: taking the lead in the dance.
Damage assessments began, and teams began prepping the community to get further support. Roads closed to allow for less traffic in affected areas. Dothan Utilities began to really get to work assessing the power situation.
Until three in the morning Tuesday, most teams were still in rescue mode. Power was still off in areas, but they were able to get an all-clear for the area.
Williams said a big part was going slowly and carefully.
“It is managed chaos,” he said. “In the middle of all that, you’ve got so many things to do.”
He remembered the tragic tornado in Enterprise in 2007, early in his game as the top man at Dothan Fire. His department had been called for mutual aid, but how many trucks could he spare — especially considering the squall line headed for his jurisdiction?
It’s incidents like that which helped teach him not only how to keep a cool head, but also how to be smart, how to think ahead, and how to manage resources in times of crisis.
But he said a huge part of the quick response was the great relationships his department had with other departments: police, sheriffs, utilities, hospitals, every department, and the City Commission itself.
“Everybody just works great together as a team, but it’s bigger than that,” he said. “From utilities to public works to wastewater treatment, every department has a hand in public safety. All these things are all us working together to ensure the public is safe, healthy and well during these type of events.”
——————————
Williams was hesitant to use the word “pride” to describe what he felt in the aftermath, lest he sounded prideful in some sinful sense.
“I’m proud of our fire department,” he said. “They did a great job. They all did what they were supposed to do. They were at it the correct way, and their training fell in place.
“We were prepared for the worst-case scenario, but it wasn’t, thank the Lord.”
He said he also was so proud of the community response from every department within the City of Dothan and the citizens.
He said Dothan City Schools did a great job with the emergency response as well.
“They took care of those kids,” he said. “And the SROs from the police department made a major impact. Right off the bat, they got it all rolling.”
“Everybody working together makes me proud even more, because all the practices we have done, the training, the exercises, the disaster plans written by the Emergency Management Agency, all those things came together, and we were ready.”
