by Bob Ramsey and Erin Filarecki

What occurred in Norfolk, Virginia on November 11-15, 2009, during the 30th Annual Virginia Office of Emergency Medical Services, truly could not have happened to a more suitable group of people.

As a nor’easter brewed off the coast of Virginia, nearly 1,800 people trained in the field of emergency medicine were checking in at the downtown Norfolk Waterside Marriott for the Office of Emergency Medical Services (OEMS) conference.

They didn’t anticipate what would happen and that this would be one of the most memorable conferences to date. The mission statement of the OEMS is, according to the Web site, “to reduce death and disability resulting from sudden or serious injury and illness in the Commonwealth through planning and development of a comprehensive, coordinated statewide emergency medical services (EMS) system; and provision of other technical assistance and support to enable the EMS community to provide the highest quality emergency medical care possible to those in need.”

While the nor’easter, dubbed “The Perfect Storm,” slowly approached Norfolk, classes were held where attendees expanded their knowledge on topics such as capnography, pancreatic trauma, diabetes and using new media in EMS.

At the storm’s peak, wind speeds in Norfolk reached 75 mph. The area suffered a sizeable amount of damage including hundreds of downed trees, power outages in thousands of homes in the region and flooding. Hundreds of people were evacuated from low-lying areas and streets and offices and schools were closed for days.

Luckily for the Marriott, they were hosting a special group of people with a unique attitude toward inconveniences during disasters. Naturally, there was a disruption in the services the Marriott usually provides. However, both parties remained optimistic and realized this disaster actually happened at the “perfect” time at the “perfect” hotel with the “perfect” group of people!

“For three days this storm stalled right over Norfolk,” said Dave Phillips, resident manager of the Norfolk Waterside Marriott.

“There were numerous road closings making it impossible to get to the hotel. We were fortunate many of our staff made it to work, especially our housekeepers and security team. Our staff treats the hotel the same way they treat their own home and many of our employees have been here since we opened in 1991. Our sales staff was waiting on tables as everyone pitched in to do what was needed to serve our large EMS group. We had a back-up plan for everything. My biggest fear was losing power so I purchased, but didn’t need, 600 glow sticks just in case. From past experience, we knew it would be important to have the backup generator power the pumps to lift water to the top of the hotel. This way, if we lost power guests could at least shower and use the toilet.”

When it looked like the storm might seriously disrupt the conference, Jim Nogle, OEMS Emergency Operations Manager, quickly assembled his trained disaster response team in our staff room and developed “what if” plans to protect the safety of the attendees.

“When the water rose and covered the roads in and out of our parking lot, we developed a quick message for all those who would not be able to leave the hotel, and went class to class making that announcement. Although only 14 commuting attendees were affected and stayed the night in the hotel, we had no other safety issues impacting our attendees,” said Bob Ramsey, CAE, President of Ramsey Management Group and event planner for the past 20 years for the EMS Symposium.

“I’m the luckiest meeting planner alive to have this client trained in handling emergencies,” said Ramsey. He went on to say that, “EMS providers are so easy to work with. To them, a cold cup of coffee isn’t the end of the world like it is for other clients. Believe it or not, we only had 76 no-shows of the 1,800 registrants and only cancelled 4 of our 250 classes. One of the classes cancelled because the equipment the instructor planned on using during the class was needed during the storm.”

“It’s our job to deal with the unexpected and we are trained to respond in all kinds of weather and conditions so the ‘perfect storm’ that hit Norfolk during our annual event was no big deal,” said Gary Brown, director of the Virginia Office of Emergency Medical Services and sponsor of the EMS Symposium. “When the tones go off in a rescue squad building, our EMS providers go out the door not knowing exactly what they will find. It is ironic that as the Symposium grew in size we applied our Incident Command Structure to better manage the logistics, operations and executed a system. We were organized to expect and handle the unexpected.”

“As an event planner, the biggest lesson I learned was how important it is to have a disaster plan in place. Actually going through the ‘what if’ scenarios: what if the hotel loses power; what if the attendees can’t leave the hotel? This exercise allowed us to set in motion solutions even if many of them weren’t needed. It also doesn’t hurt to have disaster professionals as your clients,” said Ramsey.