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by GRAHAM RAYMAN, DAN JANISON AND SEAN GARDINER
More than 400 city firefighters and police officers embarked yesterday for disaster-ravaged New Orleans in what officials described as the largest relief contingent ever sent by the city.
In all, the city has dispatched nearly 700 police, fire and emergency management workers to the devastated zone. Meanwhile, local hospitals were gearing up to send teams of medical personnel to the region, as soon as next Monday.
"New Yorkers want to help victims of this disaster in any way we can," said Mayor Michael Bloomberg. "We remember that our fellow Americans were there when we needed them and we want to be there for them."
Yesterday, 108 police officers departed in a caravan of 50 NYPD vehicles. They followed 176 officers who left Saturday for New Orleans. An Air National Guard transport plane left Kennedy Airport yesterday with 328 firefighters aboard.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the deployment won't draw from security here.
"We feel we will be able to cover the events that are ongoing and upcoming," he said. "What I am assuming is that the security conditions will get progressively better."
The formation of the medical teams has been the subject of conference calls over the past few days between local hospital officials and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which is coordinating the medical effort.
"The thing that is impressive has been the chomping at the bit that the health care teams of our systems are so anxious to get in and be helpful," said Kenneth Raske, president of the Greater New York Hospital Association, a network of 250 health care institutions.
Susan Waltman, senior vice president and general counsel for the association, estimated that six to eight teams of about 110 staffers each will be formed for two-week assignments in the sprawling disaster zone.
The precise date and location of the deployment remains unclear, though it will likely be to areas with crippled medical facilities or large numbers of displaced people.
Beth Raucher, a physician at Beth Israel Medical Center and co-director of the Continuum network's emergency management committee, said 250 medical personnel have already volunteered for what likely will be harrowing work in austere conditions.
"What we need to do is get our teams together, and get the names to HHS," Raucher said. "They are asking us to put together deployment teams that are like a microcosm of a hospital."
Raucher said she expected that the teams will deal with chronic medical conditions, diarrhea, fevers, traumatic stress and wounds that occur as people return to their hometowns.
In all, HHS envisions up to 40 medical shelters with 250 beds each, and as many as 4,000 medical personnel involved.
HHS spokeswoman Christina Pearson said 700 federal medical staffers are at work at shelters in Meridian, Miss., and in Louisiana. Over the next four days, she said, the number is expected to grow.
Theresa Bischoff, chief executive of The American Red Cross in Greater New York, said more than 300 New Yorkers are working the phones in a hurricane call center in what he described as the charity's biggest operation ever.
She appealed for donations, calling that "the thing we need from New Yorkers right now." Officials with the Archdiocese of New York and local labor leaders made similar appeals.
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