The Baltimore City Howard Street Tunnel Fire

The city had learned from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and had done contingency planning in the event of another similar terrorist attack. It established a state of the art Emergency Operations Center. It was evident that training was provided to all departments and officials as to what the priority would be in the case of a disaster, which is public safety. The first thing that was done was to seal off the area to allow first responders to respond quickly and evacuate the public from the area. Even in the absence of communication with the Emergency Operations Center, department heads and key ranking personnel knew exactly what the priority was and acted accordingly. The city’s preparedness left little room for doubt as to who was in charge, with that being said, state and federal agencies were mainly in the role of supporting the city in the efforts of evacuating, rescue and recovery. The leadership provided by the mayor calmed the already shocked public and reassured them of their safety. “The three steps of crisis management are prevention, preparation and containment” (Starling, 2008, p.222). The city itself could not have done much about preventing the situation, but the city’s preparation was evident by their public administrator’s and employee’s quick decisive response. The containment was also accomplished by the city action of closing off the area and

Inherently the fire service operates in high-risk environments to facilitate the role of preserving life safety and property conservation. How these incidents are managed and safeguarded by our administration

The assistance provided for the purpose of helping the victims of a disaster rebuild their homes to the same living conditions they had lived in before the disaster, FEMA assisted 130,000 middle income and low income families rebuild after the Northridge earthquake (Eugene, 2010). FEMA also assisted with the coordinated the response of 27 federal agencies that were involved in the recovery process. The FEMA United States Fire Administration student manual “ICS-300: Intermediate ICS for Expanding Incidents” (2013) refers to this type of command structure within the Incident Command System is defined as a “Unified Command”. The Unified Command type of management system allows for multiple agencies to work together to plan and strategize but most importantly to be able to collect resources from each agency without having to go through extra steps. This coordination was said to have had a huge benefit by being able to get the funding for repairs and to be able to decrease the time frames set to repair and rebuild the infrastructure (highways and roadways) needed to the get the city moving again. (DeBlasio et al,.

This tragic fire demonstrated how the fire inspections and precautions were noticeably lacking safety for these workers even though “a little more than five months before the tragedy Firemen Edward F. O’Conner made a routine inspection and said the Asch Building was ‘good’ and the building was ‘fireproof’”(28). The fire finally died down with over one hundred dead bodies piled along the streets. Sunday morning “thousands of people began to form into a slowly moving parade around the city blocks”(89). The people were walking in honor of these workers and would go around trying to identify the bodies and confiscate any items the bodies my have possessed for reminiscences. On the other hand, the departments felt immediate quilt for not stepping in to fix the Asch building before, because the departments knew of the horrible safety and health precautions the Asch building had but nobody emphasized the problems. “But who was to blame?” (113). Chief Croker was quick to blame

In the Disaster in Franklin County simulation (Regents of the University of Minnesota [UMN], 2006), there were several key personnel in the incident command team. This concept is utilized in real disasters when the Public

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire not only affected the city of New York, but also the rest of the country. It forever changed the way our country would look at safety regulations in factories and buildings. The fire proved to America what can and will happen if we over-look safety regulations and over-crowd buildings. Unfortunately, 146 lives are taken before we fully understand this concept.

“They were trying to get under the foam, but to no avail," he said. "They were human torches." The fire quickly spread eastward along Avenue “Y” towards 5th Street. Viewing the unfolding horror before him, Commissioner Rizzo ordered two more alarms, five additional rescue squads, and the recall of all companies which had previously been released from the fire grounds throughout the day. On these orders the fire alarm room transmitted the seventh and eighth alarms. As the fire had been placed under control nearly eight hours earlier, firefighters in stations across the city knew that the unthinkable had occurred as these additional

The Triangle Factory Fire took place in New York on Saturday, March 25, 1911. The fire was marked as the worst in history of the state of New York. Men, women, and children of all ages were there but unfortunately there were more women/girls than men/boys. There were many people to not find a way out of the building but some decided to jump out of the windows for a way of escaping the fire. Majority of those who escaped by the window lost their lives. The employers had no clue of this ever happening as well as the fire department who did not have enough man power or equipment for this massive degree. Although majority of the workers died, there were some who lived to share their stories.

On November 14, 2003, a fire was reported at the Greenhalgh Mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The Pawtucket Fire Department was dispatched to the fire. One of the satellite stations, Cottage Street Fire Station, happened to be directly across the road from the old mill and could see first-hand that the fire was already fully engulfed. This fire rapidly spun out of control, destroying three mill buildings, thirteen homes, and damaging seventeen other structures before being contained. Twenty-one mutual aid departments from Rhode Island and Massachusetts were called in to assist the Pawtucket Fire Department. Looking at the article, Rhode Island and Massachusetts Units Converge on Pawtucket Mill Fire by Jay K. Bradish, from both the engine and truck company perspectives, in my opinion, the call for additional resources and an adequate supply of water were appropriately implemented, while the implementation of the Incident Command System and the accountability of fire personnel were handled improperly during this fire.

During the fire, it destroyed over $200 million in destruction. The fire left 100,000 people homeless and more than 17,000 structures were destroyed in the fire. As well as 300 people killed in the fire. It took a lot for everyone to realize what happened and to know

The New York City Triangle Waist Company fire was a disastrous event that paved the road for Progressive Era reforms. A day after the fire, there was an article, “Death List Shows Few Identified,” published by the New York Times listing the identifiable and unidentifiable dead and the injured. Because of the revealed appalling working conditions and the gruesome deaths the workers came to, the reader now desires to join the Progressive movement for improved working conditions and factory safety. The historical Triangle Waist Company fire resulted in not only local factory reforms but national factory reforms as well as increased women’s rights. The “Death List Shows Few Identified” article provides a statistical representation and depiction

March 25, 1911 about 145 people were killed due to a tragic fire. The fire was called the Triangle Factory, it was one of the largest disaster in New York before 9/11. Before the fire there weren’t many rules that aided in the prevention of massive fires, and a lot of people died because of that. Since the fire new labor laws and fire safety laws.

On September 11, 2001, Fire Station Four was expecting to have a normal day. All eight firefighters and the chief arrived to the station and got into their uniforms. At 8:45 a.m., they got a message. The north tower of the World Trade Center had been hit. A plane had been hijacked and flown into the tower. All of the firefighters and Chief Hosterman got into their trucks while in a state of terror.

Emergency services face vast difficulties in the operations field when handling emergency situations, whether it comes from handling a minor accident to a catastrophic catastrophy. Many of the difficulties do not come from the actual incident, but instead they arise from forming a rescue team containing different agencies and people. For the benefit off all individuals participating, it is imperative that there be a unified command structure in place to effectively coordinate and oversee the tasks that need to be accomplished. The need of a unified command was seen from the hardships faced in incidents, bringing forth the development of the Incident Command System that was designed to be used in an array of conditions, to bring all

Today, the Incident Command System (ICS) is a major component of NIMS and is widely used in emergency management response. However, this was not always the case. According to David A. McEntire and Gregg Dawson, authors of the article, “The intergovernmental Context,” ICS was originally developed by the fire service in 1970. Its purpose was to assist in the command of wildfire events. It was unique because it standardized operations, yet offered flexibility so that it could be used on any number of events, regardless of size or type (McEntire & Dawson, 2007, p. 63).