Wake Emergency Responders Receive Medical Patients, Evacuees from Texas

9/23/2005

Wake County Emergency Management, along with state and federal emergency responders, received almost 100 medical patients and evacuees from the Beaumont, Texas, area this morning at the National Guard facility at Raleigh-Durham (RDU) International Airport. All have now been hospitalized or transported to the Hurricane Disaster Victims Center in west Raleigh, where hotels and other lodging were secured for them.

Overnight, the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) activated emergency responders to receive medical patients. The first plane, carrying 33 patients, arrived at approximately 4:30 a.m. Friday, and a second plane landed at 8:15 a.m., carrying 61 patients.

No more planes are expected until after Hurricane Rita has passed, due to unsafe flying conditions in the storm-affected area. Local emergency management officials are on standby for possible receipt of medical patients in the storm's aftermath.

Approximately 56 ambulances and buses were used to transport patients. A total of 13 people from the first plane and 20 from the second were sent to hospitals in nearby counties. The remaining 20 patients from the first plane and 41 from the second were taken to the Hurricane Disaster Victims Center in west Raleigh for registration, feeding and placement in temporary accommodations. The Center is still scheduled to close at 5 p.m. today for all evacuees.

In response to Hurricane Rita's potential impact, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) activated the NDMS. According to the NDMS, thousands of patients will need to be flown out of the Hurricane Rita impact area and redistributed across 10 possible NDMS locations around the country that can accommodate the patients in their surrounding hospitals.

The NDMS is a key component of the Raleigh/Wake Metropolitan Medical Response System program that has successfully incorporated local, state and federal partners into a unified response mechanism.

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