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Things are changing around here, and I wanted to highlight the best of the blog during December, 2013. The first week is devoted to my favorite guest posts and posters. The second week is devoted to my three most engaging posts. The third and fourth weeks count down my top six most trafficked posts, truly, the best of the best. These overview posts will have links to each of the posts for the week.

Stay tuned to all of my posts for the rest of the week as I highlight my top three, most engaging posts. On social media, we’ve started counting engagement as opposed to just followers. My most engaging posts, like those listed below, show how successful social media can be at stimulating a conversation and bringing people together.

First up, Dan Slee, local gov extraordinaire, loves this post on campaigns and why they should die. It is regularly shared in the storied halls of British local governments (or so I’m told).
Secondly, we talked about why you pay too much attention at conferences, and you should be livetweeting. This post got the most comments of any post that I’ve ever written.
Finally, the second most commented-on post I’ve written is courtesy of PIO Marcus Deyerin, whose series on the I-5 Skagit Bridge Collapse was highlighted last week during our celebration of guest posts. This post was all about how vital social media was to the response.

This is just the first of an absolutely riveting walk through the events of 9/11 and the anthrax attacks that followed from the perspective of someone who was at the forefront of the nation’s response. It is one of my favorite series ever, and I was honored to be able to host it.

The following is a guest post by Scott J. Becker, MS, Executive Director, APHL. It is also available on the APHL blog here.

Everyone has a story of when their life changed forever. It could be before kids or after kids – or a traumatic life event like the death of a spouse, or a happy event like graduating from university. For an entire generation it was 9/11 and the anthrax events that soon consumed those of us in public health.

Like many of you, I remember exactly where I was when the towers fell. I was on my way to deliver a keynote address to the Mississippi Public Health Association and the topic was Branding Public Health. Upon landing in Atlanta, I called my hosts to let them know when I was due to land in Jackson, and heard that there was some “trouble” but that we should be in touch when I landed. I then started to pick up snippets of conversation around me, words that sent a chill down my spine. “Bombing… New York… Washington…” were just a few. I jumped back on the phone to call my wife to ask her to please go pick up our 5 month old daughter, Sophie, at daycare. You see, that very day was Sophie’s first full day in daycare, and the daycare center was a few blocks from the White House. I caught my wife back at home in Bethesda, who immediately turned on the TV, and then headed back downtown. I wandered the terminal for a minute or two, trying to wrap my head around what I was hearing and then called a colleague at CDC, realizing that I would be stuck in Atlanta. He offered me his office and I headed up after encountering the longest taxi line I’ve ever seen (I was quick; I got out in 20 minutes. Folks that waited longer
were there most of the day).

Once I got to CDC it was apparent what had transpired. And then CDC was evacuated, as it was deemed a possible target by the unknown enemies. We had now moved into our new life, but were too numb to understand it. Soon thereafter I checked into a hotel, and joined many others glued to a TV. We were a new “family” of sorts, all of us
stuck together in this unfolding national tragedy. I was finally able to get a call back to my wife and was relieved to learn that she had gotten Sophie out of DC, even before the Pentagon was attacked. Sitting there, I learned that my flight that morning left Dulles the same time as the one used by the terrorists that flew into the
Pentagon.

Hearing that sent me into action; I needed to get home. Through divine intervention and many phone calls, I secured a one-way car rental the next day. Virginia’s lab director Jim Pearson, APHL staff Jeff Jacobs (now with ASCP) and I drove straight home. No planes in the sky; no cars on the road; patriotic signs on many overpasses from
Georgia to Maryland. After 12 hours of travel we came over a small hill on 395 in Arlington and looked down on the smoldering black hole in the Pentagon complete with the American flag… and the quiet almost desolate city of Washington just beyond.

What I couldn’t quite grasp was exactly how our world was now completely different. There were Humvees on every corner, security officers with guns and policemen… just about everywhere. Our city, like New York, was transformed overnight. So were our professional lives, particularly for those of us working in public health.

At APHL, we’d been focused on lab preparedness for terrorism since 1999, when we constructed the Laboratory Response Network (LRN) with CDC and the FBI. But on this day, September 12, 2001, the once obscure threat was palpable; it was real. We worked with CDC to ensure that all the state labs had the tests, materials and equipment they needed
in case a threat was made to human health in some sort of attack. We made sure that all of the contact lists were accurate and that we knew with whom to consult if needed. The LRN went onto a high state of alert – we were on the lookout for any suspicious samples or specimens. Our members were told to report anything out of the ordinary, no matter how small it seemed. Everyone was on edge, and for good reason. News reports were issued daily (for weeks) and used terms like “biological or chemical warfare,” “possible use of bioweapons,” “biowarfare,” or “smallpox.” And then the question was being asked first privately and then publicly: “Are we prepared?” That question is still with us and always will be – the real question is for what and for how long?

Vice President Cheney was particularly concerned as President Bush had asked him upon his inauguration to take charge of overseeing intelligence matters and to conduct a study of the nation’s vulnerability to biological weapons and terrorism in general. One vulnerability identified was access to dangerous pathogens such as anthrax, plague and pandemic strains of influenza viruses. And public health labs had access.

On October 2nd, all the possibilities of bioterrorism became a reality. It was on that day that an infectious disease physician recognized a possible case of inhalational anthrax in a man who was hospitalized in Palm Beach, FL. The local health official immediately began an investigation which included having the patient’s clinical
specimen sent to a lab for diagnosis. The clinical lab couldn’t rule out anthrax, so according to protocol, they contacted Dr. Phil Lee, the Biological Defense Coordinator for the Bureau of Laboratories at the Florida Department of Health Lab in Jacksonville. Once he received the specimen (On Wednesday October 3rd at noon) he began the analysis immediately. The series of tests took less than 24 hours, and early on Thursday October 4th he confirmed what is now known as the index case of anthrax. All eyes were on Florida as the index case worked and lived there, and CDC was sending investigators to his work place, AMI Media, to figure out how this could have happened.

Since the Florida anthrax case followed the 9/11 attacks so closely, it was unclear what we were dealing with, but we were at the ready.

Marcus Deyerin is a good friend. Marcus is also one of the smartest, most forwarded thinking emergency response PIOs in the US. His account of the response to the collapse of the I-5 bridge over the Skagit River was not only riveting, it was full of best practices. Not best practices like you should do this and that, but instead best practices like this is how I did it and it worked. These posts should be required reading for EMA PIOs.

Skagit Bridge Collapse Personal Lessons Learned
Marcus Deyerin
PIO
Northwest Washington Incident Management Team

Initial Response
A few people have asked me how I was possibly on-scene so quickly. Pure coincidence. My son participates in an athletic activity about a mile from the bridge collapse scene. I heard one, then two, then multiple sirens – and you don’t have to be an emergency manager type for that to get your attention. I opened up a radio scanner app I have, and the first words I heard were “I-5 bridge collapse over the Skagit River…”. I didn’t need to hear it again for confirmation – the number of sirens in the air was confirmation enough. I immediately grabbed my son and we headed to the scene. I knew exactly how to get there quickly since it’s a route I often run while my son is at his activity.

When I arrived, I quickly recognized the on-scene incident commander, the local fire chief and a former team member on the Northwest Washington Incident Management Team (NWIMT). I let him know I was there, but then just stepped back and stayed out of his way. After about 15-20 minutes I again approached the IC and asked if I could help in any way. That’s when he remembered my PIO role on the IMT and asked if I’d be willing to fulfill that function there on-scene.

With phones not working and the “field” nature of the scene, Twitter was the obvious and best platform for communicating information to the public. I spent about 3 minutes trying to get my team Twitter account functioning (more on that below), and then gave up and just started tweeting incident information from my personal account.

Phone and SMS
The phone system was impacted quickly (which I expected), but much more broadly than I would have anticipated. My colleague who was located up in Bellingham reported trouble making phone calls about the same time I lost my ability to call out. Here’s what my notes and phone logs reflect:

6:55pm – bridge collapses
7:10pm – I arrive on scene (estimated)
7:12pm – Outbound call successful (work phone)
7:30pm – Assigned as PIO by on-scene incident commander
7:31pm – First Twitter post sent from scene
7:37pm – Outbound SMS attempt – unsuccessful (personal phone)
7:48pm – Outbound call attempt – unsuccessful (personal phone)
8:09pm – Outbound SMS attempt – unsuccessful (work phone)

I’ve omitted a few redundant attempts from the timeline above for brevity’s sake – but you get the gist.

8:38pm – Washington State Patrol district PIO provides my phone number to media via tweet
8:40pm – First incoming media call
12:03am (Friday) – Last incoming media call before WSDOT took lead as incident PIO.

Personal lessons learned:

• I don’t normally care for them, but in this situation I really wished I had a bluetooth earpiece for the phone.
• We (emergency management) have been telling people for some time now that even when the phone lines are overwhelmed, SMS might still work. I think we need to emphasize the “might” element. In this instance, both SMS and phone connectivity started working again in the immediate area within 90 minutes or so. But that’s a long time if it’s your only way to communicate.

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Tomorrow, Marcus will be talking about social media during the response, specifically Twitter and a bit about virtual support teams (VOST).