Working During Earl

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Simusid

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I'm 6PM to 6AM friday-Sat and from the current projections there is a good chance that the eye of Earl may go right over me. There are definite choke points in our town subject to coastal flooding so areas may be inaccessible. I have no idea what our back up plan is for dispatch and right now I can think of about 20 realistic things that can go wrong.

I'm wondering when "scene safety" means you don't even roll out of the station!
 
When winds reach 60 mph!
 
I don't start working for a paid on call fire deptarment till wednesday so :/. I get to miss all the fun haha.
 
Be a good question to ask your supervisor...
 
So on the clock till 60 mph, then when 88 mph kicks in go find the back to the future car and have some fun.
 
How would I go about figuring out what the no-go conditions are for my area?

I thought we just...kept going until we got stuck.

During snowmageddon '10 in Northern Virginia we just plowed and used snow chains.
 
When you work for a service, they have set SOP's for storm work.
 
Simusid said:
I'm not sure I can get a GMC 4300 chassis up to 88!
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I have it on good authority that 2004/2005 (guestimate) Ford type 3 with about 300k miles on it can make it up to the low 90's...
 
Chimpie said:
Volly's should have SOPs too. :unsure:
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Right?

The vollies in our county have an association where they get together and come up with system SOPs like that.

During Isabel in Richmond, we parked everything and went inside for about 2 hours.

Then it all opened up again, and we dealt with people living with no power for weeks. Those old trees hadn't seen a hurricane in a while. The power lines were EVERYWHERE!
 
abckidsmom said:
Right?

The vollies in our county have an association where they get together and come up with system SOPs like that.

During Isabel in Richmond, we parked everything and went inside for about 2 hours.

Then it all opened up again, and we dealt with people living with no power for weeks. Those old trees hadn't seen a hurricane in a while. The power lines were EVERYWHERE!
Click to expand...


Sounds like fun...
 
When I was a kid, back in the '50's and 60's, there would be a good two blasting hurricanes every year sliding up the east coast. In the late 70's I was stationed in FL. A review of construction increases on the east coast US showed a tremendous surge in shoreline construction and population, much of it way beyond local EMS's capacity to handle adequately in disaster response.

Perhaps Katrina got people thinking. But my guess is the preparation will really be evident for the NEXT Big One! Good luck all, on this one.
 
I don't recall a time when we were ever told not to respond due to weather. We have been advised to go back to our stations between calls from time to time, but that's it. Wait for the weather to moderate? Will patients MIs wait for the weather to moderate? Will that woman in labor WAIT for the weather to moderate. Ladies and gentlemen, this is what we do. We're expected to show up when people call. Sometimes, like in Pittsburgh last winter, we can't, but that doesn't mean that we sit in our station waiting for the weather to moderate.

I've responded in blizzards and hurricanes, gotten soaked and froze, but that's part of the job.

To paraphrase Gen. Patton.

We're gonna keep responding Is that CLEAR? We're gonna respond all night, we're gonna respond tomorrow morning. If we do not TRANSPORT let no man come back alive!
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proof that decreased brain cells support life!
 
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