The Washington region has some new equipment for responding to possible disasters or terrorist attacks.
Fire chiefs from across the Washington area gathered Thursday to unveil the state-of-the-art equipment, which would be used to prepare local first responders for a possible tragedy.
Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Washington officials have been planning, training and procuring equipment in the event of another attack but the region recently received $54 million from the Department of Homeland Security.
Officials used some of the money to buy eight mobile air units for refilling firefighters' oxygen tanks. The units look like fire trucks and can each refill up to 70 tanks an hour. They can each accommodate 20 patients on stretchers, plus health care providers. The ambulance buses also feature individual oxygen lines to a bed onthe vehicles, which have enough room for a staff of five medical professionals.
The Washington region will have seven standby medical professionals on call to staff the buses, officials said.
Arlington County Fire Chief James Schwartz, who heads the fire chiefs committee of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, said authorities struggled to keep firefighters supplied with air on Sept. 11, 2001.
"There isn't a day that I come to work that that isn't my primary mission: the safety and protection of the human beings that reside both in my community and in the region. If they become victims, we want, we need to have the training and capability to care for their injuries," said Chief Jim Schwartz, Arlington County Fire Chairman of the Council of Governments' fire chiefs' committee.
"It takes funding. It takes continual effort. It takes maintenance. We can't reach this crescendo and then fall down, so we have to keep it going," said Interim D.C. Fire Chief Brian Lee.
A command unit would capture live images and feed them to first responders around the region while linking their communications and providing accurate information with split-second efficiency, officials said.
Local law enforcement and fire departments are now in the process of submitting their federal funding requests for 2007. The requests are expected to be finalized by April, officials said. The funding grants will be announced sometime in August or September.
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