Two Oklahoma City Disasters: The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Tornadoes—A Blood Bank Perspective

In this article, I review how the Oklahoma Blood Institute (OBI) responded to 2 disasters: the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995, and the tornadoes that hit Oklahoma City and the surrounding area on May 3, 1999. We learned some important lessons about handling large numbers of donors, transporting blood supplies, planning for future disasters, and helping the public heal. I hope that many of these insights will be useful for the medical community as a whole. OBI has 7 blood centers in the state of Oklahoma: in Oklahoma City, Lawton, Enid, Ada, Ardmore, Tulsa, and Ponca City. OBI supplies blood to about two thirds of the transfusing hospitals in the state (71 institutions). The main center is in Oklahoma City, and each subcenter is 85 to 100 miles away from the main center. The subcenters act independently, except for laboratory testing, component production, and information services, which are centralized in Oklahoma City. Blood, of course, is very important in a disaster. Not only does it allow blood transfusions, which either save lives or improve the quality of life, but it serves as an insurance policy of sorts. Surgeons will not perform operations unless blood is available. Based on that, the blood serves a purpose even if it is never used. When a disaster occurs, no one can estimate how much blood will be needed. Therefore, it is critical to have adequate supplies of blood products on the shelves of the hospitals served and of the blood center itself.