I will discuss the need for a viable pre-hospital contingency plan applicable to mass casualty or disaster mode situations.

It is my experience, during eighteen years in public safety and emergency services, that most organizations are highly competent and responsive to the daily expectations which are placed upon them. As most emergency services managers will tell you, they generally plan for the expected. After all, analysis in such areas as population growth, economic levels, unemployment and criminal trends are the lifeblood of any emergency service agency's personnel, equipment and budgetary allocations. Our level of sophistication today allows us to predict, with some degree of certainty, what demand will be placed on our organizations and how we will meet that demand. The point is this: we in emergency services have been extremely efficient and proficient in addressing the expected needs of the public we serve.