This looks like boilerplate policy required by their insurance company. Smurf is a neutral word and anyone hearing it not privy to its meaning would have no idea what it meant. That would minimize people coming over to gawk. I don't see any smoking gun here and bet you can find identical docs for every large event.
This is likely the case. The radios they use are usually open-frequency radios that anyone can listen in on, and everyone, especially media outlets, know that. They'll listen in, but the vast majority of people trained to handle these situations will not openly discuss sensitive information that might get leaked to the media, such as the number of deaths. That sort of information is tightly controlled so that nobody hears about their loved one dying on the news or hears early, unverified numbers about casualties before they are confirmed.
Hence, why police use police codes, which tend to be different from the codes other precincts. You don't want to make it easy for any rando listening on a radio to tell that you're dealing with a rape victim.
Absolutely. I worked in a hospital a long time ago. There was an elderly/infirm floor and Code Meadow meant a patient had crapped the bed or in the hallway and housekeeping would rush up to deal with it.
This looks like boilerplate policy required by their insurance company. Smurf is a neutral word and anyone hearing it not privy to its meaning would have no idea what it meant. That would minimize people coming over to gawk. I don't see any smoking gun here and bet you can find identical docs for every large event.
This is likely the case. The radios they use are usually open-frequency radios that anyone can listen in on, and everyone, especially media outlets, know that. They'll listen in, but the vast majority of people trained to handle these situations will not openly discuss sensitive information that might get leaked to the media, such as the number of deaths. That sort of information is tightly controlled so that nobody hears about their loved one dying on the news or hears early, unverified numbers about casualties before they are confirmed.
Hence, why police use police codes, which tend to be different from the codes other precincts. You don't want to make it easy for any rando listening on a radio to tell that you're dealing with a rape victim.
Absolutely. I worked in a hospital a long time ago. There was an elderly/infirm floor and Code Meadow meant a patient had crapped the bed or in the hallway and housekeeping would rush up to deal with it.
Hospitals now call that a Code Biden (when a patient craps themselves).