Hurricane Irene

[Lady_EMT]

Hello, all!

Currently sitting in station, listening to the rain start to pound on the windows, and making cookies.

I'm curious how this hurricane thing pans out. Anyone from the east coast whos already going through this? I can't seem to find anything online as to the extent of the damage so far.

My back yard is already starting to flood, so I'm nervous for my basement

Nothing is supposed to get bad until around 3am here, so I guess me and everyone else here is stuck playing the waiting game.

First "hurricane" I've been through, though I'm sure by the time it gets to us, it'll be a little rain storm.

 

[traumaluv2011]

I'm on the central NJ coast on standby as well. We have about 50 mph winds, but there isn't much flooding right now. The coast line is actually going out. (shocking) We're going to be stuck here for a while. We have two crews at the building if needed. So far we haven't had any calls and we started at 16:00 this afternoon.

 

[ArcticKat]

Turn on CNN, They've had nothing at all on all day except for hurricane Irene. I guess there was no other news in the world today.

Good luck everyone.

 

[Hunter]

I'm in south Florida, So C1 Hurricanes I just walk around outside with a raincoat o_o...

 

[WoodyPN]

Im currently in Philly, and the tornado warnings have been on and off...

 

[bigbaldguy]

Good luck all of you East Coasters. Keep your heads down and stay safe.

 

[NomadicMedic]

I'm in Delaware. It's been bad at the coast, not so bad inland.


Sent from my iPhone.

 

[Lady_EMT]

The rain just started getting bad, the roads are already starting to flood. And I live right near a main river, so that should be fun.

My dispatch center us putting us under a wide spread incident status at 0600 Sunday morning. And I'm not sure what to do with my puppy; I dint want to chance him getting loose if I keep him at hq, but I also don't want to leave him at home and not be able to make it home to take care if him if the weather gets as bad a it's supposed to.

I can deal with blizzards, ice, and 6 feet if snow, but flooding and bad winds get me uneasy.


---
- This post brought to you by Tapatalk

 

[lightsandsirens5]

Lady,

Lock the dog in the shower, in case, you know....

As for the rest, having been through too many hurricanes and typhoons to remember, don't worry too much. It's tough enough staying sane locked in the same building for 12 hours or however long it takes. The best thing you can do is hope and pray everything goes well at home. Don't stress. And have fun knowing that you all are on international news right now. :-D

Seriously though, treat it like something different and new now. I know its stressful, I have been through at least three supertyphoons (most powerful typoon there is. Actually most powerful storms on earth.) and one or two Cat V hurricanes and they are stressful. But by having almost a "party" we made it through with more good memories than bad.

All that I guess to say, please don't stress, and look for the good in every situation.

 

[firetender]

Back when

In the 1950's when I was growing up in Brooklyn, the East Coast would periodically get hit with a couple hurricanes in a year. I don't think we had the Category thing figured out then. Hurricanes came often enough that everyone pretty much knew what to do and it wasn't such a big deal as it is today. Naturally, they were tracked (but not so damned dramatically!), and alerts went out but the rest of the world didn't have to be SO sucked into it to cause everyone in the country to get so riled!

Katrina sensitized us. Now, no person in power wants to be the one to say, "Relax, it's cool, let's wait and see!"

NO politician will take that stance. And, people don't want to be left in the lurch like N'oleans, which of course won't happen because this one isn't hitting N'oleans.

What I see is 80% paranoia and "they won't catch me minimizing this" mentality at work.

(Wait a minute, I need to check to see if I'm sticking my foot in my mouth 3 a.m. Eastern)

What I'm opposed to is the anticipation that is MANUFACTURED by the media and everyone they quote. The severity they promote us to imagine is highly unlikely to materialize.

Much property will be destroyed and some people will die. This is what hurricanes bring, but I'm not sure they have to keep everyone cranking on an adrenaline rush of fearful expectations.

(None of this is said with disrespect meant to those who will suffer in this normal cycle of nature.)

 

[mycrofft]

Web resources

google "stationary satyellite server" and look at GOES imagery. I suggest the vapor band with rocking motion.

Google "wunderground" and your zip code for radar and forecasts.

FEMA has much (too much) info about post-storm recovery, such as not pumping your basement out too soon and how to recover things like floppy diskettes and documents.

 

[shfd739]

Lady,

Lock the dog in the shower, in case, you know....

As for the rest, having been through too many hurricanes and typhoons to remember, don't worry too much. It's tough enough staying sane locked in the same building for 12 hours or however long it takes. The best thing you can do is hope and pray everything goes well at home. Don't stress. And have fun knowing that you all are on international news right now. :-D

Seriously though, treat it like something different and new now. I know its stressful, I have been through at least three supertyphoons (most powerful typoon there is. Actually most powerful storms on earth.) and one or two Cat V hurricanes and they are stressful. But by having almost a "party" we made it through with more good memories than bad.

All that I guess to say, please don't stress, and look for the good in every situation.

This^^^^. Some of the best times at work have been during storms when we we're all working together. We made it into a "party" everytime with generators going and cooking on a grill during the storms.


Sent from my electronic overbearing life controller

 

[adamjh3]

Not to go too far off topic, but every time I hear "Irene" this is all I can think of:

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yOEOJ1BARk[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Lady_EMT]

The storm is past us, all we got was a TON of flooding and downed trees nearly blocking us in town. But we've all been hanging out, and stealing sandwiches and coffee from the fire department, haha. We decided with need a generator, so we aren't stuck in a big humid room with no tv or computer.

We had a lot if fun though. It's nice to all get together. And my house and my puppy didn't blow away, lol.


---
- This post brought to you by Tapatalk

 

[dixie_flatline]

Reporting in from Maryland.

Just got back from the station at about 4:00. I was there from 1200 yesterday until 1530-ish this afternoon. We weren't really busy yesterday - on the ambo I only had 1 real call, for a lady that spun off I-95 on the way home from work (which was at 5ish, well before the storm hit hard). We did have people running all night for wires down, transformers exploding, that kind of thing. We took the medic out on a few collapse calls, but just headed back in when they all turned out to be OK. I actually got around 3 hours of sleep.

We didn't start running seriously until around 7 this morning. It was solid from 0700-1530 though. No more than 10-15 minutes between getting back and another tone dropping. Had a kid who stayed outside all night in the hurricane with some nice hypothermia (he was mad at his parents. wtf). Had a COPD pt from DE who was evacuated and didn't bring her O2 or nebs with her. Had a guy who was out getting coffee after the storm had passed through have a tree fall and just mash his car. He had some nice retrograde amnesia, he got a ride to Shock Trauma. Then as I was leaving the station, the infamous "duck tones" (tone of death) dropped - Life Status Questionable. 66 y/o male in a trailer park survived the hurricane fine. Went to take a dump today and was found 30 minutes later, ashy grey with his pants around his ankles. After CPR and a couple rounds of epi/lido, it looked like he actually had a rough v-tach rhythm going, but we don't know what his downtime was. I'm not expecting good news on that one

And on that note, I'm going to take my first shower since yesterday at 1100 and eat my first meal since 1900 last night.

 

[WoodyPN]

Thats blows, survive the Hurricane fine, only to go into the bathroom and vagal :/

 

[Lady_EMT]

We had a double extrication last night when the storm first started, then ha various calls throughout the night. Had a quadriplegic this morning who needed to go to a safe place with electricity since he needed to plug his wheelchair in in order to get around. Then we had people with anxiety attacks as they were being evacuated. Nothing crazy.

And that sucks about the code guy. Great way to check out


---
- This post brought to you by Tapatalk

 

[ArcticKat]

Lets see....we had a convalescent transport of a woman with a post surgical patella fracture and a nursing home transport of a COPD SOB.

Oh, and I'm about 1,600 miles West of New York.

Glad to hear all of you made it through okay so far. Thanks for the updates.