State’s Post-9/11 Emergency Response Improves

Wayne Sandford couldn’t stop watching the news on Sept. 11 ten years ago. He was the chief of East Haven Fire Department at the time, and he thought about the attacks in a way that only a firefighter can.

“We all know as we’re watching this what’s going on at FDNY,” he said. “We know that there are brothers and sisters of ours running into those buildings to get [people] out of the buildings.”

While they were watching events unfold, a fax arrived asking that any available firefighters to come to New York City to provide aid. Seventeen firefighters went to Manhattan, where they helped dig through the rubble, slept on the street and tried to make sense of the destruction.

“I don’t think I slept at all during that timeframe,” Sandford said. Updates from the firefighters in Manhatten were regular.

The firefighters were sent back home a couple days later. They were told that they’d be contacted if their help was needed, but Sandford saw problems with the communication infrastructure. He believed that mobilizing multiple fire departments, police departments and other responders for large-scale disasters just wasn’t efficient in its current form.

“If there was an emergency in another state, or here in Connecticut, how would we get called? How would we know if we needed to respond? That started it and we began to do a lot of work.”

Sandford was appointed to deputy commission of the Connecticut Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security (which recently restructured into the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection) It was all an all-new department with a focused task: making Connecticut and the rest of the United States prepared for anything.

On Thursday evening, Sandford detailed the advances the state has made to a crowd who knows about it all too well. The Medical Reserves Corps, a well-trained volunteer organization with chapters throughout the country, hosted him at the West Haven Convention Center. 

The advances are both large-scale, such as the creation of more response teams that can handle hazardous materials and bombs, to the seemingly minor fixes that were previously overlooked. He detailed negotiations with the Red Cross, which previously didn’t allow pets in rescue shelters. Now, some of the space will go to animals as needed.

According to Sandford, the new infrastructure that plugs in the gaps exposed by 9/11 doesn’t just apply to emergency responders. There’s now a system in place where flight instructors can report suspicious clients. The terrorists involved on in the attacks learned to hijack the planes through such instruction.

“It’s amazing – there are 700 aviation instructors in the state of Connecticut,” he said. “Every one of them is registered and every one of them reports irregularities to us.”

Security guards also have a new system for alerting police in a region. Through the use of grants and government funds, Sandford said Connecticut has been able to launch public awareness campaigns (See Something, Say Something) and purchase a variety of equipment.

Although Connecticut – and the rest of the country – is better prepared for emergencies, Sandford told the crowd of volunteers that it’s possible their training and tools might never be needed. He hoped this proves to be true.

“In some way it’s like using your car insurance,” he said of training for emergencies. “As difficult as it is in the Medical Reserve Corps please do not lose your patience that there aren’t any disasters. Hurricane season is coming. Don’t worry.”