A newly released after-action report reveals that DC call takers and supervisors did not clearly communicate the severity of the disaster, did not have the codes they needed to do their jobs and failed to act as quickly as they could, wasting almost 15 minutes before telling everyone involved that people and dogs were trapped and in danger inside the District Dogs building during last year’s tragic flood .
Ten dogs drowned in Aug. 14 incident in Northeast D.C.
In February, DC Council members interviewed Heather McGaffin, manager of the District’s 911 system – the Office of Unified Communications (OUC) – about the agency’s response to the Dog District flooding. While his agency had months to do so before that hearing, McGaffin did not release an after-action report that day as planned, saying it would instead come from the Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency. DC.
What she didn’t say was that the draft report was completed on December 18, months earlier.
DC Council Member Brooke Pinto released this report on Wednesday. The DC Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency did not explain to the News4 I-Team why it did not release the report.
“As part of my role overseeing our emergency response and public safety agencies as chair of the Justice and Public Safety Committee, I have requested, obtained, and am reviewing a draft of the after action report on the district’s tragic dog flooding incident last. “I strongly believe that increased transparency of the District’s emergency response is essential to improving accuracy, reliability and public trust, which is why I shared the draft Executive After Action Report with the public.”
The 25-page report details the timeline of what happened on August 14.
Three 911 calls were received about District Dogs that afternoon.
The first call, at 5:06 p.m., came from an employee who was not at work but was monitoring the flooding from a remote camera. That employee and his partner, Corvo Leung, who was also on the call, told the operator that people and animals were trapped by the rising waters. According to the report, the operator wondered how to code the incident in the dispatch system. According to the report, a supervisor asked the call taker to enter the message as “water leak.”
Despite the call, no emergency response was sent to District Dogs after this initial call. Indeed, the report stated that up until that time, no indoor water rescue had ever taken place in the city.
“To hear this classified as a water leak, when we’ve been very clear that the lives of the people and the dogs are in danger…It boggles my mind,” Leung told the I-Team. “And that troubles me on a very, very high level.”
OUC received a second 911 call at 5:09 p.m. from another off-site employee who also said there were people and animals inside. It was only then that OUC sent the first rescue team to District Dogs, but the radio call to teams on scene was still described as a “water leak”. At that time, the report said, “the dispatch did not mention people or dogs being trapped.” It was still coded in the dispatch system as “public flood assistance.” This is considered a “low priority,” so the fire commander turned the rescue team around, which is standard practice.
A third 911 call came in at 5:17 p.m., from a person actually trapped inside. That’s when the computer system was finally updated for “water rescue.” It was 11 minutes after the first call. Five minutes later, at 5:22 p.m., OUC radioed firefighters on scene for the first time that people and animals were trapped and in danger.
The report reveals that firefighters did not enter District Dogs until 5:29 p.m. and did not reach the third caller until 5:35 p.m.
Leung still can’t understand.
“I believe that if there had been a quicker answer, a different answer, a more specific answer, that the people that I know and care about and love would not have had such severe PTSD, that “They wouldn’t have flashbacks every time it rains,” they said.
The report says any change in coding would not have saved the dogs. The dogs were already dead, according to the report, but this would have ensured that the appropriate resources were sent on the first expedition.
OUC says all of its call takers and dispatchers have been trained since this incident to code future indoor water rescues as an emergency – categorizing them as “rescue or building collapse.”
The report does not address OUC’s lack of problem solving or workaround in the face of an emergency it has never encountered before.
OUC did not respond to the I-Team’s request for comment.
Pinto said she will push for more information at OUC.
“With the implementation of my Secure DC omnibus public safety legislation requiring sustained public transparency of our 911 and emergency operations, I will continue to push for increased transparency to improve the accuracy and reliability of our emergency response and building trust with the public,” she said.
Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough, and filmed and edited by Steve Jones.
