Crime & Safety

Eastern Pa. EMS Council Is Well-Prepared For Any Local Disaster Response

Its Incident Support Unit coordinated EMS communications during recent Allentown blast aftermath.

Emergency services vehicles from all areas of the Lehigh Valley converged on 13th and W. Allen streets on the night of Feb. 9 in response to the  that leveled an entire Allentown city block.

First responders to the scene assessed the situation and then headed for the big white truck with the big satellite dish on top. It was probably the only big white truck with a satellite dish that wasn’t associated with a television news station.

But it certainly was the most important communications vehicle at the disaster scene as far as emergency service efforts were concerned.

Find out what's happening in Nazarethwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Eastern Pa. EMS Council's Incident Support Unit served as the communications hub for all emergency services personnel during the Allentown blast situation, which is its normal mission during such disasters.

“We are a resource to support all mass EMS activity at the situation,” said Everitt Binns, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Eastern Pa. EMS Council. “The City of Allentown did a superb job and was fantastic in their response. We rolled up and they jumped in and we all tied in to the communications systems.”

Find out what's happening in Nazarethwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The council’s Incident Support Unit utilizes state-of-art cellular technology, computer workstations, faxes, maps and GPS systems that allow emergency personnel to communicate clearly and facilitate effectively during mass casualty situations.

Eastern Pa. EMS Council, based at 48o1 Kernsville Rd. in Orefield, is a nonprofit organization established in the mid-1970s under the auspices of state legislation. Its region includes Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Carbon, Monroe and Schuylkill counties.

Binns said the council’s vehicles, equipment and support staff are available throughout the six counties and the entire state to assist with coordination of EMS services at disaster scenes.

For example, Deputy Director John Kloss, noted two of the council’s three emergency trailers were dispatched to Allentown’s Ag Hall in case the evacuated residents of Gross Towers needed housing for the night.

“We didn’t have to set them up,” Kloss said. “But, they have 50 hospital beds per trailer and can sustain fixed hospital operations with a full compliment of medical supplies.”

The council’s compliment of emergency equipment includes two additional trailers that function as mobile hospitals.

“These house inflatable tents that can handle 50 patients at any given time and are equipped with heating and cooling systems,” Kloss said. “They have everything needed if you’ve lost the functionality of an area hospital.”

Kloss said the council provides backup help at Pocono Raceway during its major NASCAR events in the summer.

“We’re contracted and we’re the off-the-property monitor,” he said. “Our role is to step in if too many ambulances leave the property and the raceway is diminished on reserves.”

The Incident Support Unit has left the state to assist with large-scale disasters, spending two months in the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and also deploying for a time following Hurricane Gustav in 2008.

Eastern Pa.  EMS Council, the third largest of 16 regional councils, was originally monetized by federal highway funds. Now, it relies on grant funding and monies raised through moving violation traffic tickets.

“Every moving violation traffic ticket has an EMS fee associated with it, although some of those funds are now going to other priorities,” Binns said,

The council also raises funds by selling mass triage toe tags that identify the severity of a victim’s injury or if a person is deceased.

“We’ve done that forever, even before Sept. 11,” Binns said. “The federal government buys them and the monies go back to our local EMS providers. It’s the right thing to do.”

Recently, the council has been active in the community through a grant from the Northeast Pennsylvania Regional Counter Terrorism Task Force and has held mass casualty incident training sessions at the local level.

The council’s duties include performing ambulance inspections and assisting other EMS entities and communications centers, with obtaining grants for equipment and training an helps these entities purchase updated equipment.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

To request removal of your name from an arrest report, submit these required items to arrestreports@patch.com.