How long can you tread water?

Rick Sposa, BA. NREMT-P Jersey City Medical Center

EMS/Emergency Preparedness

Acknowledgments

Misunderstood field

Emergency managers are typically a misunderstood breed

Constantly looked at as the portal of bad news and adverse information

Identified as building elaborate plans for the day that will never come. . . .

47-square mile response area

Dense urban landscape

Directly opposite of downtown Manhattan

Most densely populated county in NJ and sixth most densely populated in the US.

Where do we serve?

Who are we?

Primary BLS Service for Jersey City (population 248,000)

Primary ALS Service for greater Hudson County (population 610,000)

Respond to approximately 80,000 calls for service with 48,000 patient contacts

Who are we?

Regional Trauma Center

Safety net hospital

ED sees 90,000 visits a year

Primarily serve uninsured population with little access to primary care

Where we are

Jersey City Medical Center

Storm preparation

Statewide Conference Calls

Pre-planned response EMS / Hospital

Staffing bolstered

Hurricane Plans reviewed

Storm Clock

- 3 days 2:00:00

Storm Clock

- 2 days 0:00:00

Hospital Evacuation

Sunday - Hoboken University Medical Center makes decision to evacuate

100 + patients evacuated in six hours to surrounding hospitals using NJ EMS Taskforce Assets

Storm Clock

-1 Day 00:00:00

HUMC evacuated by NJEMSTF

The Storm hits. . .

Staffing beginning to come in and being housed at hospital

Rain/Wind Event

Water surge higher than seen during Irene (but ignorantly felt confident we could handle)

Storm Clock

0:00:00

And then it REALLY happened!!!!!

Storm Clock

+ 1:00:00

The damage

Storm Clock

+ 1:00:00

Forced to go on Divert, not accepting any patients

At one point every hospital in county was not accepting patients

Campus completely inaccessible.

Patients literally swimming up to our doors

Complete IT shutdown because of impending flood

Lost all EMR, GIS, Dispatch, and patient charting applications, along with email and internet

Power lost almost, catastrophic

Multiple collapsed buildings and facades in the city

Multiple structure fires burning out of control

At this point we did not even have confirmed locations of these events

All communications disabled

Another Hospital Evacuated

Palisades Medical Center Evacuates post storm

Inundated with patients

No gasoline/power

Worried well, cold, wet, and powerless flocked to the hospital

Multiple EMAC requests made for additional EMS resources, city overwhelmed with call volume

The Calvary arrives. . . . (and not a moment too soon)

• Multiple fires over the next few

days/weeks

•Shelter operations established to

lessen hospital patient loads

Mobile Hospital Deployed

•Mobile Acute Care Satellite

Emergency Department (MSED)

Established

•Four total deployments

•Hillsborough

•Brick Township

•Jersey City

•Long Beach, NY

Outside EMS Agencies respond

•15 Outside

ambulances

used for over

two weeks

•Units from

•Philadelphia

•Pittsburgh

•Baltimore

•Pennsylvania

•Maryland

Where do we go from here?

November 8, 2012

Storm Clock

+ 10 days

Jersey City Medical Center Emergency Medical Services

“Enhancing Life… Through Nationally Recognized Prehospital Care”