During last week's Chicago Fire Department Life-Safety Conference, U.S. Army Lt. Col. Ryan Yantis spoke during the general session. Yantis, who was at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, discussed some of the events during that period from a military perspective.

Yantis prefaced his talk with a truth learned during his career in the army: "We lived and died by our training. The smarter our soldiers were, the better they can react." He said that in May 2001, there was a mock plane-crash training exercise at the Pentagon. While many workers were upset with the disruption caused by the training exercise, the exercise proved effective four months later on Sept. 11.

Yantis also offered his list of lessons learned over the past five years:

• Make training as graphic as possible. Force agencies to interoperate in the gravest modes.
• "Be ready for the second attack. Once the first responders arrive, terrorists may set a second device to take out the first responders."
• "Now is the time to prepare the calling centers and train the staff to handle the calls that will be received during a disaster."
• Prepare responders for the amount of carnage. "Whether it was the jumpers at WTC or the devastation of fire," Yantis said, "How do you prepare first responders so they don't freeze up?"
• "Silly bravery amounts to silly brave stuff."

Yantis shared the story of Rick Riscola, a decorated former platoon leader in Vietnam, who was security chief for Morgan Stanley in the World Trade Center. He was responsible for "22 acres of desks and thousands of people. Riscola trained his people, and as a result all but six made it out alive." (Riscola didn't.)

This led to some lessons for civilians:

• Some WTC survivors said they never had seen the stairs in the WTC until that morning.
• WTC survivors told of seeing piles of shoes and bags in the stairwells. People tried to carry their stuff with them in the evacuation, but ended up leaving it along the stairs. Plus, women couldn't walk in high heels.
• Have a plan for the disabled or obese who can't make it down 70 floors.
• Demonstrate how to use temporary smoke hoods. "Those that survived from the blast or impact in the Pentagon died from smoke and heat. Now each Pentagon employee has an escape hood."
• "Those nice emergency exit lights above are useless in a smoke-filled hallway. Put luminescent tape along the floor or floor boards."
• Install smoke curtains and sprinklers.
• "You have to plan to move all those people out of the building to somewhere."

Yantis cautioned to not let the media set the stage. "If you don't have a credible source," he said, "[they] will take whatever chowderhead they find and take their information. Don't leave it to the uninformed."

Yantis also advised the attendees to be prepared for the ad hoc memorials. "You have to give people an opportunity to see and touch and grieve." Finally, he offered, "Know when it's time to go and talk to other professionals. It's better for professionals to talk to those trained in handling [emotional] issues."

Good advice as we approach the anniversaries of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina.

Janet Wilmoth, Editorial Director