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Presented by Officer Michael Huddle <br />There's been a lot said on television, radio, and in print. The images <br />captured were at once spectacular and frightening. Perhaps you were there <br />that day and experienced it first hand. You may not know that you, as a <br />citizen of St. Anthony, had something to do with the success of the response <br />to the collapse. A lot of things had taken place long before this disaster that <br />you helped make possible. <br />On my way to the bridge site I was thinking: What will I find when I get <br />there? Where will I be needed most? How do I get to where they need me? <br />Who do I check with when I arrive? How will I communicate with other <br />personnel by radio? What channels will we use? <br />The St. Anthony Police Department had a big advantage in dealing with <br />these issues. We work daily with two separate county dispatch centers, and <br />routinely interact with and assist surrounding agencies. This has forced St. <br />Anthony Police Officers to become familiar with the 800 MHz radio system <br />across two counties and be very good at interagency cooperation. There <br />would be a lot of that to do at the bridge site. <br />I was operating in a relatively isolated area of the collapse, but operations <br />were taking place over a wide area. As responders, we were focused on our <br />own particular area of operation, and there was a lot to do. There were EMS <br />and firefighters at the scene doing their jobs. I saw doctors and nurses from <br />HCMC assisting casualties. There were not enough resources where I was <br />right away, so the EMS personnel were forced to improvise. Many of the <br />victims were stabilized on large pieces of plywood (rubble from the bridge <br />structure itself) as makeshift backboards because there weren't enough to go <br />around. I only saw one ambulance make it through the crowd to where we <br />were to evacuate the most severely injured. It seemed that people were <br />coming from everywhere to get close to the collapse. This made securing <br />the scene and ensuring public safety much more difficult. It also made <br />evacuating casualties more difficult. With all that was going on, I never felt <br />overwhelmed. I felt focused and confident. I saw that the firefighters and <br />EMS personnel were also calm and focused. Police, Fire, and EMS had <br />their own operational radio channels to work on and reported directly to a <br />29 <br />