Telephone operators stayed at their stations for hours to summon doctors, undertakers, area hospital workers, and anyone else who might help. The Lansing Fire Department sent several firefighters and its chief.[36] Local physician J. A. Crum and his wife, a nurse, who had both served in World War I, turned their Bath drugstore into a triage center. The dead bodies were taken to the town hall, which was used as a morgue.[27]