Project Description
Texas Mass Fatality Operations Response Team (TMORT)
Mission
- Provide operational assistance to medicolegal authorities
with incident site, deployable morgue, victim identification center, & victim information center operations following a mass fatality incident that overwhelms a local jurisdiction.
Capabilities
- Available statewide as an activated, 24/7 response asset
- TMORT is composed of [4] teams that can deploy independently or all at once on behalf of the State:
- Incident Site Team (IST): Conduct scene investigations to locate, document, & recover human remains & personal effects. Staffing: Human Remains Recovery, Mapping, & Evidence Tracking Specialists
- Morgue Operations Team (MOT): Conduct disaster morgue operations to examine human remains. Staffing: Admitting, Triage, Storage, Personal Effects, Photographers, Radiographers, Pathologists, Autopsy Assistants, Dentists, Anthropologists, DNA & Fingerprint Specialists, & Exit Review. [Disaster Portable Morgue Unit is maintained by SETRAC in Houston]
- Identification Review Team (IRT): Compares antemortem & postmortem data to identify human remains. Staffing: Dependent on the ID methods used, & could include Anthropologists, DNA Scientists, Fingerprint Analysts, Pathologists, Odontologists, &/or Death Investigators.
- Victim Information Center Team(VICT): Conducts family interviews, gathers antemortem data, & collects DNA samples. Staffing: Family Interviewers, Records Collection & Management, Personal Effects, & DNA Reference Collectors.
- TMORT will collaborate with jurisdictions in the set-up of Family Assistance Centers [FAC] however, FAC staffing & operations are the jurisdiction’s responsibility.
- Medical examiners’ offices, academic institutions, & private entities provide the deployable team members for the TMORT
Personnel & Asset Counts
- Staffing & asset profiles are typing dependent. Each team has [4] scaled teams typed.