Phong Ngo and Adam Grooms review 3D image data from the drone.
CULLMAN – The State Mortuary Operations Response Team (SMORT) held a training event at the Cullman County Fairgrounds at Sportsman Lake this week, led by SMORT Commander Doug Williams and Cullman County Emergency Management Agency (EMA) Director Phyllis Little.
According to the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH), SMORT is "an organized group of volunteers located throughout the state who will respond to assist the local coroner (at their request) during mass fatality events. Members of SMORT include licensed funeral directors, embalmers, coroners and emergency management personnel."
The organization is composed entirely of volunteers, all of whom are experts in some related field. Though they work in fields related to mortuary sciences, they take time off from work and give up personal leave to train for and respond to mass fatality events.
Williams explained, "We're a state team. We're made up of funeral directors and embalmers from across the state, and everybody's a volunteer. When we're called, we're an asset for the state if there's a disaster in the state with multiple casualties. We're under the auspices of the ADPH and EMA. They send us to wherever it might be: an explosion somewhere, or a tornado or whatever. It's our job to recover those decedents, to help the (local) coroner try to identify them. We're also tied to forensic science; they do autopsies for us, if we have to have those done on decedents."
He continued, "We've got assets all over the state: we have refrigerated trailer systems so we can put decedents in them, to keep them until we can process them and identify them. We have those stationed in different parts of the state. We have three main morgue units: one's in Cullman, one's in Lee County in Auburn and Opelika and one's in Mobile. They all work in conjunction; if something happens in north Alabama, all the south Alabama stuff comes up here, and vice versa."
At this event (and others like it held at least once per year) the team pulled equipment from trailers to make sure generators and powered tools still work, checked clothing items to make sure they are in good repair, and generally made sure everything was organized for maximum efficiency during rapid response. Additionally, the team spent time in the classroom getting caught up on policies and procedures, and time on the fairgrounds performing a simulated grid search.
The Cullman training event saw the unveiling of an exciting new piece of high-tech gadgetry in the form of a camera-fitted drone. Adam Grooms and Phong Ngo of the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences demonstrated the drone by photographing portions of the fairgrounds from multiple angles. Using software similar to that used by mapping services like Google Earth, they were able to process the drone's data into 360-degree 3D images that could be zoomed in on and viewed from different angles.
According to Grooms, the drone program is still experimental, and software packages from different developers are undergoing evaluation; he referred to this week's exercise as their beta test of the technology.
By the way, this is not SMORT's first time to come to Cullman. They are all too familiar with this part of Alabama: on April 27, 2011, SMORT assets from all over the state were deployed to our region to assist with local response operations after the disastrous tornadoes on that day.
Of the SMORT team and its personnel Williams concluded, "They're all dedicated individuals, and they're a great bunch of folks, very well trained. And we've got great partnerships with public health and forensics, EMA, the funeral directors' association and the morticians' association. There's a big group of folks that have come together to handle disasters. We hope we don't have to go tomorrow, but we know things are going to happen in the future. That's why we try to keep everything ready."
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