Who's Culpable?

The inefficiency of City agencies to coordinate a large scale response to an emergency situation run by a private entity should really bring pause to anyone who thinks this town is anywhere near ready for an Olympics or a terror attack. Based on the e-mails we've gotten (a dozen plus) and comments generated (over 140 in two posts), the following evaluations and opinions are presented (these are opinions - take it as you like):

• Up until the point the race was called, the City (via the police) was responsible only for traffic control. All aid stations, supplying the stations, coordinating volunteers, ambulances (private), and such was supplied by the LaSalle Bank people. Therefore, the bulk of the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of race organizers.
• This race is way too big. 45,000 runners? Time to throw in some qualifications for entry to cut down on the number of people.
  

Once the race was called at the 13 mile mark, it became an emergency situation necessitating a City emergency response. Here's where it gets sticky:

• Not enough ambulances - who could have predicted that running in 80+ degree heat would lead to a bunch of people falling out due to medical issues? Oh, yeah, we could, at 02:51 in the morning before the race. And anyone with the weather channel. And anyone who knows anything about running in the heat. The private companies were overwhelmed in short order, which led to...
• CFD - not enough ambulances - we certainly hope the comment we read earlier wasn't true, that CFD pulled every ambulance off the street leaving the neighborhoods uncovered. That would point out a glaring weakness in any sort of terror response. But the fact that numerous outside agencies had to send ambulances to Chicago to help out with a sporting event disaster does not bode well for an Olympic bid. The other CFD responses (opening hydrants for cooling runners) noted by our readers and letter writers seemed appropriate.
• CTA - not enough cooling buses and a couple without working A/C. Then when the race was called, people tell us there were no buses on hand to pick up stranded runners. The massive re-routing and the Sunday schedule left CTA with no drivers to get more buses up and moving. Squad cars were being told to pick up stragglers needing medical attention and transport them to the medical tents in Grant Park, making a bad traffic situation still worse and reducing police presence along the race route.
• Streets and San - had their barricades in place days in advance, but once it went bad, no system in place to move needed barricades around to coordinate a street level response.
  
• OEMC - complete and utter failure. No alternate frequency made available. Too few dispatchers overwhelmed, bad system in place. Here's how one writer described it to us "An emergency every minute, non stop for two, maybe three hours. Dispatch takes the gender, bib number and location over the air, then uses the same air to relay the message to 49Mary (command post), who then phones it in to the private ambulances. Once it went to shit, that system broke down so fast and so badly, it's a wonder anyone on the course got medical attention." Not the model of efficiency one would expect from one of the most technologically advanced Departments in the world.
• And finally, CPD - thank god some officers and sergeants can think on their feet. We'd say they ought to get medals, raises and a parade, except some undeserving people would jump on the paper. The comments and letters are brutal in their criticism. We get stories of officers asking if their sector has been relieved yet in the midst of emergency calls and others asking on a police frequency if runners are going to get an official time if they finish the race on their own. The chirping of radios with dying batteries was supposed to be unbelievable. The inability to coordinate a response to get runners safely back to Grant Park clogged the streets badly. Some teams of officers got the word that Jackson was going to be closed to traffic to facilitate movement of runners back to Grant Park and took it upon themselves to make cutoffs where necessary. It wasn't pretty, but it got Jackson closed so tens of thousands could move.

All in all, an ugly response to a bad situation. And this was with a peaceful crowd, no panic, no fires or explosions or massive weekday crowds.

Bring on the Olympics!