Wake County EMS' 'Evac One' bus is 'mission ready' for Dorian

WAKE COUNTY, N.C. (WTVD) -- Wake County EMS is ready to provide help when called upon during the storm.

They have a special school bus outfitted like an ambulance called "Evac One."

"We've got it set up like we'd want to take it if we were leaving in an hour," said Jon Olson, deputy director and chief of support services at Wake County EMS.

During Florence last year, the bus went to Onslow Regional Hospital in Jacksonville. They took patients from there to Duke, Durham Regional and Wake Med.

The bus allows first responders to move patients in bulk who aren't critically ill.

There are 12 of them around the state, and 14 patients can fit in them.

"It's there to add extra resources when we look post 9-11 and post-Hurricane Katrina," said Jeff Hammerstein, assistant chief of community outreach. for Wake County EMS. "One of the things we discovered is that we need be able to move large numbers of people to a safer place when a region is affected by disaster."

One from Guilford County and another from the Charlotte area are already in place for Dorian.

"We basically have life-support stuff in there," Olson said. "When we deploy, we always have a crew and an ambulance that follows us."

Evac One, according to Wake County EMS, is "mission ready."