Alumnus Coordinates NYC Response Effort

Mark Russo '85, '87 (Mas), chief of field operations for the U.S. Public Health Service, is a veteran of the Oklahoma City bombing and many other national disasters. But he says the response in New York City dwarfs any other that his agency has helped with.

"This was the largest deployment in the history of this system," Russo says. "It's a mammoth project, but we've been working together very well."

Responsible for coordinating the federal agency's response to the disaster, Russo headed teams that provided medical care for victims and rescuers, veterinary care for search dogs, and victim identification. He also helped the various organizations-which included the FBI and CIA, the state and city emergency response teams, and other federal organizations-work together, a task made more difficult considering that the city's state-of-the-art office of emergency management was in 7 World Trade Center Plaza, one of the buildings lost in the attacks.

Russo also assisted the city in examining New York's postal facilities for anthrax and treating the more than 7,000 people who may have been exposed.

Late last fall, he remained on the scene at ground zero.

For a person whose job deals with tragedy on a regular basis, Russo says that he becomes lost in the numbers and figures instead of focusing on the tremendous loss of life.

"You have to get detached from it, otherwise it just tears you up," he says.

Russo, who lost many friends from the city's emergency response teams in the World Trade Center attacks, says their deaths will have a long-term impact on the city.

Still, the tragedy really hit him after he returned to his Rockville, Maryland, home for a few days.

"As with Oklahoma City, you can't get a real sense of the impact until you're right there," he says. "I said after Oklahoma City that we'd never see something that bad again. I guess I was wrong."

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