5 xxx-09 – ‘Miracle on the Hudson’
As of the publication date of this book, I have been unable to find any Red Cross DRO numbers associated with this incident. It was ramped up, mission-completed, and scaled-down all in one day – as far as the Red Cross was concerned.
On a cold January morning in 2009, all of the New Jersey Emergency Services Directors were having a meeting in our Tinton Falls office. We normally did not talk/work/interact with each other on a regular basis back then – except for these meetings. This was a time when all of the Red Cross chapters were basically independent of each other within the state – and pretty much the rest of the country. I have lost count, but there were 15 chapters represented there, of varying sizes. The Northern New Jersey and Central New Jersey chapters were probably the biggest chapters – and yet, there were still a few chapters in those day which only represented two or maybe three municipalities. These type of collaborative meetings were designed to get us all on the same page, if something new was coming from the Division or from our National Headquarters. Each chapter team had different skill sets and experience with disasters of scale.
As I noted in the ‘During‘ blurb, I was the Emergency Services Director for the Tri-County Chapter, and we covered 21 towns in three counties. We were pretty busy each year, averaging a fire response a week, maybe two. And I was just past my first year as an employee (I started October of 2008). And while this was my first air incident – and by far the best results anyone could possible hope/wish/pray/work for – sadly, it would not be my last. The next chapter has a more somber result of what some of the missions which the Red Cross does, out of the public’s eye.
From Google Gemini
On January 15, 2009, a seemingly routine flight from New York City to Charlotte, North Carolina, took an unexpected turn, forever etching its name in aviation history as the “Miracle on the Hudson.” US Airways Flight 1549, carrying 155 passengers and crew, encountered a catastrophic bird strike shortly after takeoff, disabling both engines. Faced with an impossible situation, Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger made a split-second decision that would save countless lives: he would ditch the plane in the frigid waters of the Hudson River.[1]
The landing was executed with remarkable precision. Sullenberger skillfully guided the plane onto the water, minimizing the impact and ensuring a controlled descent. As the plane came to rest on the water, passengers and crew were met with the frigid temperatures and choppy waters of the Hudson River. However, thanks to the swift response of emergency services and the presence of nearby boats, all 155 people on board were rescued safely.
Lessons Learned
Synergies are better. So is collaboration.
I learned that our internal disconnects within New Jersey were harmful – to both the organization and how we supported our clients. And we ‘lived’ in the shadow of the bigger “Greater New York” chapter which had the funding from all of those major New York corporations. The ‘Miracle on the Hudson’ incident forced us to all work together – but we were singularly focused on the mission. That is what worked best. And I think we were all a bit reformed after that – and had we not started regionalization and consolidation of Red Cross chapters across the country, we probably would have done more collaboration ourselves anyway. 9/11 did not do this for us – but I think this disaster did.
I learned that the ‘home rule’ aspects of New Jersey governments – meaning every jurisdiction operates on their own – can really be a detriment to a disaster such as this. We could not get responders with blankets and supplies into areas on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River efficiently and quickly (unlike how the Greater New York chapter was able to mobilize the same on the New York side, since it was all New York City proper). Our vehicles were stuck in traffic. Local law enforcement had roadblocks which we did not have the coordination to get past. Disaster mental health professionals could not get to the scene for the same reason. And on top of all this, the airline was not coordinating with state government (or if they were – they were not passing this information on to us) and bussed everyone from the airplane who appeared on the New Jersey side, over to JFK airport in Queens (where US Airways had their Family Assistance Center established). By the time we got fully organized, we were out of business.
There is a really good podcast from the Greater New York Region of the Red Cross on this incident. It has interviews with some of the Red Cross leads that day, as well as many of the passengers and crew. You can find it here: https://redcrossny.podbean.com/e/the-miracle-on-the-hudson/
Lessons Applied
The Red Cross across the country changed their blankets, after this incident. The overwhelming media positives – including unsolicited cash donations (The Red Cross does not fundraise off of air or other mass casualty incidents) from the scenes of the Red Cross branded blankets – changed the way the entire organization purchased blankets to give away to the public. Before this incident, the branded blankets were an option for chapters to purchase, but were more expensive than the unbranded ones. And if you had a DRO where you used your own chapter or local stock of branded blankets, National Headquarters would replace your supply with unbranded blankets – and sometimes bulk bundles of unpackaged blankets. That was a problem in itself, because we found that we could not put out an open blanket with a cot at a shelter – because the clients thought the blankets were already used. This incident effectively solved that shelter blanket problem for us.
After seeing the synergies in action that day, we started to work as a state on planning leadership capacity in specialized areas. The goal still remained for each chapter to have full capacity itself to support a certain level of disaster (as noted before, for some chapters this could be a level 3, and for other smaller ones it could even be only a level 1) through its staff, supplies, vehicles, equipment (like cots and meal storage containers called ‘Cambros®’), and sites selected for shelters. We started to look at this capacity currently – and in the short term future for growth – as a whole state, rather than just the sum of its parts. In other words, some chapters could become more proficient in fundraising, others in disaster assessment. Same for sheltering, feeding, etc.
- https://www.nan.usace.army.mil/Media/News-Stories/Story-Article-View/Article/3646964/15th-anniversary-of-the-miracle-on-the-hudson-a-tribute-to-heroism-and-the-us-a/ ↵
