Marietta, GA. When Governor Brian Kemp recently declare a State of Emergency in Georgia for Hurricane Dorian, local ambulance provider, MetroAtlanta Ambulance Service (MAAS) in conjunction with the Georgia Office of EMS and the Georgia Department of Public Health, sent a highly trained Emergency Response Team to the Georgia Emergency Management Agency (GEMA) Emergency Operations Center in Atlanta, Georgia to coordinate emergency transportation and manage operational support for the evacuation of vulnerable populations along the east coast.
The MAAS team worked with GEMA Emergency Operation officials to stand up a multi-agency coordination center to provide statewide support to local jurisdictions throughout the state of Georgia in preparation for the impending disaster. This highly trained disaster response team is deployed to manage and facilitate vehicle transport services from across Georgia assigned to staging areas along the eastern coast of Georgia. The team has been working to coordinate the timely evacuation of medical patients and senior individuals to inland locations as requested.
Metro Atlanta Ambulance President/CEO Pete Quinones stated, “We were honored to be chosen by GEMA several years ago to assist in coordinating EMS resources during State EOC operations. Our Disaster Response Team reported to the GEMA EOC last Thursday and we deployed five ambulance units to stage with other agency services outside Chatham County early Monday morning. We are hoping Hurricane Dorian continues its track back out to sea and spares the residents along the coast from excessive flooding and damage, but we are preparing for the worst case scenarios and if the storm does make landfall GEMA will be ready to send resources.”
MetroAtlanta Ambulance is the 9-1-1 ambulance service provider covering more than 1 million lives throughout Bartow, Cobb and Paulding Counties. MetroAtlanta Ambulance is an accredited provider by the Commission on Accreditation of Ambulance Services and the Commission on Accreditation of Medical Transport Systems. The company was chosen by the Georgia Emergency Management Agency to be part of the GEMA multi agency team at the Emergency Operations Center in Atlanta, Georgia, responsible for managing the evacuation of vulnerable populations along the eastern coast of Georgia.