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First, the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO) developed a countywide active assailant policy that has become the model for Florida and beyond. Now PCSO has a comprehensive reunification plan that will reduce the chaos after a mass casualty event as families and friends try to reunite with victims. The Reunification Task Force is made up of about 300 volunteers from PCSO and many other agencies in the county. These volunteers include law enforcement as well as civilian members, from dispatchers to administrative assistants.
If there’s a mass casualty event people will want to run directly to the scene to find out if their family and friends are okay. It’s a natural urge, but with rescue and recovery efforts still going on, and investigators trying to figure out what happened, adding hundreds of people to the mix trying to get answers would be chaotic and dangerous. People would put themselves in harm’s way and interfere with the vital work being done. How can ambulances get victims to the hospital if a hundred cars full of people who want answers are blocking the streets?
Instead, PCSO devised a plan to quickly set up a Family Reunification Center (FRC) close – but not too close – to the scene. Media will be alerted to let people know to respond there instead of to the scene. PCSO now has eight huge inflatable tents with air conditioning and heat that can be configured in a variety of ways. Up to four of them can even be linked together with a quad connection system. If a mass casualty event should occur, every task force volunteer will receive a notification by phone call, text, and email, and those messages will repeat until the volunteer responds to one of them.
The FRC is set up so that people affected by the incident enter at one area, and the family members looking for them enter at another. An affected person may be someone who was injured or directly affected in the mass casualty incident, or someone who is uninjured but was present and needs to be reunited with their family. Pinellas County Schools has provided 20 buses stored at their bus depot, and they’ve trained 50 drivers to respond in an emergency to pick up affected people at the scene and bring them to the FRC.
The affected people will be anxious to reunite with their family, but as witnesses or victims they may have key information to help the investigation, so detectives will be on hand to interview them and collect any evidence they may have, such as photos or video on their phone. After that they go to an assembly area to wait for their family to arrive.
For reunification purposes, family is loosely defined as anyone who considers themselves to be part of the affected person’s family, including partners and friends. When they check in, they’ll provide their information, and that of the person they are seeking, then proceed to a separate waiting area. In the best-case scenario, the affected person will be quickly reunited with their family so they can check out and leave. The FRC will have food, water, and basic medical services.
How will they keep track of the potentially hundreds of people passing through the FRC? PCSO’s own Information Technology Bureau created a program specifically for use in reunification. Secure and Fast Emergency Reunification – SAFER – is a program that tracks affected people and family members from check-in to reunification and helps reunite them. Each person who enters the FRC receives a color-coded wristband with a QR code. At each stage they can be scanned, and their information cross referenced in SAFER. For example, if a mother arrives and gives the name of her child, as soon as that child gets off the bus and is checked in, they can be told their mother is there and waiting for them. In times of crisis, people can find comfort in being reunited with their loved ones quickly.
Unfortunately, in a mass casualty incident, there aren’t always happy reunifications. There will be medical liaisons on hand who check with local hospitals and cross reference names for family notification if the affected person is injured. If the worst should occur, family will be brought to a private area for death notifications. Victim advocates and chaplains will be available to help them navigate this tragic news.
Major Joe Gerretz oversees all aspects of the Reunification Task Force, including the planning and training for the FRC. “We’ve done tabletop exercises, and larger exercises in the field,” he said. “We’re developing ways to accommodate a lot of people, because we don’t know what the situation will be. It could be a shooting in an office with 10 victims, or an incident at a stadium with thousands of affected people.”
They’ve learned a lot along the way. “Something as simple as a label can make a difference when seen with different perspectives,” Major Gerretz said. “One tent was originally called the Notification tent, but we realized that this would have a scary connotation if a family member were directed there – the name makes them expect bad news. So, we changed it.”
Most of all they learned they’ll have to be flexible. “There are some things that we’re planning based on how we believe it will unfold, but when it actually happens, things might be different.” Most people who arrive at the reunification site are going to be under stress, both the people who just went through a terrible event, and the family members who are frantic with worry about them. Everyone on the task force is trained to stay calm and remember that things will be somewhat fluid. The FRC will have supervisors in every area, and a command center, so unexpected issues can be handled promptly.
For mass casualty events and a many other aspects of public safety, preparation is key. Its complex and often a lot of work, but its important to be ready for the worst-case scenario. The sheriff’s proactive commitment to solving problems and developing well-vetted plans is one of the many ways we lead the way for a safer Pinellas.
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