I wrote the below while I was still working in emergency management in the US, where I was responsible for planning the response to a mass fatality incident. Luckily I never had to respond to one, though I did work a mass casualty incident, and that was brutal.

It’s 2 in the afternoon on Tuesday. An emergency manager is in her cubicle, which has a gorgeous view of Elliott Bay. She hears police sirens, which is not unusual. Then she hears fire sirens, and looks out the window to see medic units racing down 4th avenue. She checks the 911 website to see where they’ve been dispatched. She messages her husband that she might be home late tonight, then goes into her boss’s office to let her know.

Or it’s 6 PM, and he’s at a movie theater, trying to not watch that weird series of commercials and non-preview previews they’ve been showing before the real previews for the past few years. You know, the one that usually includes an inside look at a new USA TV show, and maybe a recruitment ad for some branch of the military. He’s scrolling through his feed when he sees multiple tweets about the same thing.

Or maybe it’s 1:30 in the morning. She’s not on call, but she’s forgotten to turn off her work phone, and that ring tone, the one that she rarely hears, wakes her from a dream. One of her cats glares at her as she slides out of bed, performing the contortions pet owners know well so as not to disturb them. She stumbles across the hall to the guest room so she doesn’t wake her partner. Her boss is on the other line, apologizing for waking her.

In my nightmares (and other cities’ realities), the reason is always the same: there’s been a shooting. Maybe it’s an elementary school on a Wednesday afternoon. Maybe it’s a club on 80s night. Maybe it’s a concert, or a midnight showing of Amelie. It’s children trying to learn, or couples trying to unwind from a stressful week. It’s people picking up their luggage after a long flight. No one ever deserves it. And it nearly always involves a firearm.

If they’re lucky, some people survive. They’re taken to hospitals all over the city and beyond, depending on who has staff and space available, and how seriously the victims are injured. Multiple people may be transported in one ambulance. If the situation is dire, maybe police officers put people in squad cars to race them to the nearest emergency department.

If it’s the middle of the night, emergency managers have some time. Some families won’t notice their loved ones haven’t come home until morning. But some family members get woken up by alerts on their phones. If it’s the middle of the day – especially a weekday – journalists and cameras descend on the scene like ants at a picnic. Helicopters hover above, providing a constant, headache-inducing hum.

Family members turn on the TV, or check Twitter, and start to worry. They call or text their family member, the one who said she was going to that movie theater. No one picks up. These family members need a place to call, to try to get answers, so emergency managers set one up. Family members provide the name of their daughter, or roommate, or father, and the emergency managers see if they can match it to someone who was taken to an area hospital. If they can’t find that name on the list, they assume the worst.

Family and friends also gather at a nearby location – maybe a community center, or a church. They sit and wait, hoping to get a text or a call from their child or partner or best friend. They can’t believe this is happening to them. The are given updates as often as possible, preparing them for what happens next.

Slowly it becomes clear that their person is not going to be calling them. There is still be some hope; maybe their child is unconscious in the hospital and didn’t have any ID on her. Staff pass out questionnaires to gather some basic information on their missing loved one. Some people are pissed that they can’t just go from hospital room to hospital room looking for their partner. Others appreciate having something to keep them busy, something that makes them feel like they are actively searching for their family member.

The medical examiner arrives, but they can’t access the scene for a while. The police are doing an investigation, and that takes time. The family members continue to wait, with the minutes dragging on. Medical examiner staff go inside after they get the okay from the police, and carefully document everything they see at the scene to help with identification later one. They respectfully move each body into a pouch and transport them to the morgue.

Family members may think this is it; they’ll finally get an answer, because they will be able to identify their loved one. But what they don’t realize, and what staff are trying to communicate compassionately, is that people who die are not always easy to identify. It’s not like the movies; the medical examiner doesn’t call in the family, pull back a sheet, and say “is this your daughter?” Instead, medical examiner staff work furiously to examine the deceased, taking note of anything that could help with identification, because they know that families and friends are waiting. DNA takes much more time than TV shows would have you believe, and is a last resort. But fingerprints can help. As can tattoos.

After any number of agonizing hours that have extinguished whatever measure of hope they might have had, family members move to a longer-term location. It is being set up as soon as responders know that a lot of people have been killed. Staff call hotels and community centers to find space. They connect with behavioral health professionals, order food, bring in first aid volunteers, and assign staff to keep the families safe and away from the media who will try to get in, shove a microphone in their face, and ask how they feel.

Soon after, family members are interviewed by investigators who ask extremely personal questions about their loved ones so that they can (hopefully) be identified. Questions about scars, dentists, recent blood donations, wedding rings. Staff brief them on the status of the investigation, identification of loved ones, and anything else that is relevant. Staff do this every day, sometimes twice a day. They keep to a schedule, because routine is helpful. Some people will remember every moment; some will later say it was all a blur. Either way, it is brutal.

It’s traumatic. It is traumatic for the people doing the interviewing, for the people doing the identification, for the support staff doing the photocopying and filing. Most of all, it is traumatic for the family members, whose loved ones were just taken away because of an asshole with a gun.

Emergency managers ignore their personal phones, save for the occasional break where they text with a loved one. They don’t want bereaved family members to think they’re playing Candy Crush while they wait for confirmation that their family member is dead. Once staff members get a chance to go home, they look at articles about the shooting. They recognize some names from their family members’ desperate pleas to call center staff.

Someone finds an article about the shooter. He – it is almost always he – is alive, safely in jail. Or he shot himself at the scene. He is nearly always white, and he had a gun that he got legally, because second amendment or whatever. He claims to be angry about something – maybe a woman rejected him, or he doesn’t like the ‘type of people’ who frequent the club. Media talk about him in near reverent terms, as a ‘troubled boy’ who has ‘mental health issues.’ This is only because he is white.

Thoughts and prayers flood in, but no one who can take action does take action. It was clear when classrooms full of 6-year-olds were shot to death and nothing changed. Elected officials don’t care about protecting people from preventable gun violence. They ignore the real threat that these ‘lone wolf’ white men with access to guns pose to everyone.

Staff working to support these families are exhausted. One of them rolls over, plugs in their phone, sets their alarm for 5:30 so they can maybe fit in a quick workout to try to keep their mental health stable. Tomorrow they go back to work, and another person, in another part of the country, gets a phone call, or sees a tweet, or hears a bunch of sirens.

Now it is their turn.