"Go" means "Now"

Hi everyone. Been a little while since I was active here (still lurking and moderating).

So, this happend Monday:

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=8822423

"Authorities say a car crossed over the center line and slammed head-on into a Cress Gas Company truck, which was fully loaded with 3,000 gallons of propane.
Both drivers were injured in the crash.

"There's gas ejecting and it ignited and there's a fire so they decided to let the fire continue burning to help relieve the pressure in the tank," emergency management spokesman Martin Focazio said.

Firefighters and hazmat crews worked to keep the tanker cool with foam and water, treating it as a ticking time bomb in the middle of Route 611.

"It's very volatile. At any time the tank could have exploded. If you noticed the trucks were set up, there was nobody with them. We set them up and abandoned them. Let them flow water on to keep it cool," Ottsville Fire Chief Tom Rimmer said.

Officials were so concerned about the danger they evacuated a one mile area around the tanker and set up a shelter for evacuees at St. John the Baptist Church on Durham Road in Nockamixon Township.

Marion Mergenthaler grabbed her dog Lily and headed to the church after fire police knocked on her door and told her to get out.

"I left everything. Whatever I was going to do today I'm not doing. I left because you never know," Mergenthaler said."

100% of our shelter residents did not have a go bag, we sent crews back for medications for some, and decided to NOT send anyone back after they abandoned the fire trucks and left them running water on the propane tanker.

A Go Bag means this:

1. There's a knock at the door. "There's a propane tank on fire 1,000 feet from here. You have to leave, right now."

2. In under 60 seconds you have your bag, you add in a few things (like medications, prescriptions and wallet and keys) and you get into a van that's driving you somewhere you may have never been or you get into your own vehicle and drive in a direction a cop is pointing - you have no choice.

We were only open for about 6 hours at the shelter. It was a great drill, and aside from the drivers in the vehicles, nobody got hurt.

Additionally, I was acting EMC for two adjoining townships, because their EMC's were unavailable, and I'm now a firm believer in NIMS/ICS, because 100% of the staff i had were people I knew but were not part of my own EMA, but because of NIMS/ICS we knew who was to do what, we used common terminology and it was easy. I was able to assign roles and know that they knew what their job was.

It was an interesting day.

Thanks for the AAR, very enlightening.

Then NIMS "mandate" is one good program that came out of the Feds. They mandated it by making federal grants for public safety agencies contingent on NIMS compliance. It is a good system.
leo

A very interesting After Action Report with a Stunningly important point!!!!!

Good report... it made me realize I have a gap in my preps. I have most all of my "go bag" stuff in my car. All I would need to grab are meds, wallet, phone. But I had been assuming I would be able to "go" in the car. Based on your post, I need to rethink this--either a second "go bag" or do one bag and set it up so I can grab it from the car quickly. This second option (one bag) creates a slight problem as my "go" stuff is broken down and stored in the numerous small spaces in my Forester. It looks (from the outside) like there is nothing stored in it--part of my effort to not have packages showing that provide a temptation.

I'm leaning toward the second bag option and keeping it in the hall closet...

Great report Martin, thanks.



bws48 :



Great idea , and I have a suggestion.

Not to substitute what you are planning, but may be a good addition to proivide more options is to add an inexpensive draw-string foldable backpack (folded) in the car. It gives you (or family memeber) the option of grabbing some stuff from those scattered material to form an addition BOB on the spot, if you need it.

The philosophy of scattered stuff is great and I do that to my office bug-in kit. But you need more options if the stuff is in a car. Say, you drive and reach somewhere , where you have to go in a shelter or hotel, and need to have the bag and stuff with you.

Chisel has an excellent point. Keeping a empty pack in your car would make it very easy to throw everything together and hike out. It is important in any scenario where your car breaks down or gets stuck in mud, snow, etc...

I would recommend a pack with real straps. Others may have better luck with rope straps but for me whenever my rope strapped bag got loaded it would cut into my shoulders and make for a miserable experience. Mine was tossed a while ago.

I did a quick search of REI & EMS and they both have stowable packs that store into their own pocket. A friend has the REI Flash and she loves it.

I have a stowable bag I keep in the car. It takes up little room and gets used all the time.

Good luck!

Great Minds run together --I have 2 backpacks (flat) in the car, and they live over the spare tire. Also some plastic trash bags. Lots of uses for those. It would be fairly severe circumstances for me to abandon the car, load up and walk away, but it could happen.

Great idea about storing an extra pack. I keep an extra pack in my Jeep so we can keep the family BOB stored as one pack. The extra pack lets us divvy the BOB contents (with some redundancies, because one is none) to more manageable hiking loads. It also lets us prep for the occassional visitor/passenger who might have to BO with us.

Redundancy is a good thing. I have a car bag, I have my BOB, and they usually both end up going with me. The car bag includes some items I would not carry in a BOB, such as umbrella (nice to have if sleeping in the car so you can keep window open and keep rain out) and more maintenance items. There is also water and food in the car at all times, which gets pulled out and used on camp outs and replaced afterward. first aid/trauma kits in BOB and car at all times, and get checked and resupplied once a year, and inspected by professionals (EMT, RN, PA friends). Each family member has their own BOB with trauma and first aid kits. BOBs stay in bedrooms while at home. Each family member also has a small or medium size duffel ready to be loaded with extra clothes.

Funny you should mention umbrellas. This summer on a back country rescue we had a victim of a horse wreck laying out in the trail in the hot sun for probably 30 minutes. We didn't want to move her to the shade until the back board and c-collar arrived. A group of off-roaders showed up with 2 umbrellas and provided shade for the addtional 30 minute wait. It was a godsend. I have been carrying one in my truck ever since.

I also carry an empty backpack for the reasons already stated by others. I have the room for a full size external frame pack. A walk home in winter will require more bulky gear than my SAR pack can hold.
leo

Thanks for posting this. It's a timely reminder.

In the past, I've been somewhat lax in the Bug-Out Bag department, because disasters around here are generally the slow-motion kind (think three-day blizzard coupled with power outages).

But my area has changed a lot in the last few years. There's a lot of new development in a one-mile radius. The oil field has been revitalized -- two big drilling rigs showed up in September. As well, there's now a small H2S component in area pipelines, there's a trucking business that moves/stores hazardous materials for oilfield use, and there's an expanded agricultural supply business (fertilizers and chemicals).

A problem with any of these operations could trigger an evacuation. It's time to get myself a little more organized.

I assume you saw that video from China with the propane tanker that actually exploded.

this is a good discussion.
but to some extent you are preaching to the choir.
of all the people in the world - the ones on this forum are MOST likely to get a GO bag together.

However, the vast majority of "normal" people will never have a Go Bag.

And in fact, many of those people have all sorts of reasons why they should not just "go" in the first place. Think of them as psychological obstacles. Things that tell peoples' brains NOT to go - even though there's an emergency happening.

I suggest you give that topic some thought.
Just a friendly suggestion :-)

Pete2

Just showed it at the Emergency management meeting Wednesday night. Just to remind everyone WHY the fire chief called a 1 mile radius evacuation.

Here's the video.
The "smoke" is propane, which expands 9X in volume as it returns to ambient air pressure. The ignition source is unknown.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVyqo40vlJ4

Martin - yeah .. i really wish that the person who took that video in China had not panicked - and dropped the camera immediately after the explosion. it would have been a great documentation of the whole incident.

the first time i watched it - i did not understand what the large cloud of white smoke was. i thought perhaps it was a small fire burning at the accident scene. it didn't occur to me that it was a propane cloud. that was probably the problem for some of the spectators.

cheers,
Pete2

ohhh and by the way Martin ...

if EVER you are trying to convince Americans to "Go Now!!!"
just tell them there is a major gasoline spill and the whole place could explode at any second.

Nobody is gonna' stick around when they hear that news :-)
They won't even wait to grab a Go-Bag.
HAHAHA!!!

Pete2

If my CERT is ever called out to spread the word of an immediate evacuation, we can't make people do anything. I've trained my team to ask refusers to write their Social Security Numbers on their arms with Sharpies, to make it easier to identify the bodies. That, I'm told, sometimes gets through.

Excellent point - too bad i swore an oath to always be truthful in the emergency management role.