Flood Wrap-Up
We've broken down emergency operations as of 17:00 April 07 2005 and have returned to the new normal. It's a mess down here. One of our major roads is basically destroyed, it will be a year before it's opened. Cleanup drags on, the damage is appalling.
Images:
http://www.ubefire.comhttp://www.brokawphoto.com/APRIL%20FLOODING2/Lessons Learned.
1. Preplanning matters. The short meeting of emergency services workers before the flood led to a fantastic level of support and coordination. We never had a situation where we didn't have what we needed or where what we needed was a surprise to anyone.
We got what we needed because we planned for it before we needed it. As long as people COULD get through with stuff, they DID.
2. Stand Down Now and Then. Our incident commander grew increasingly exhausted, sleeping less than 10 hours in three days, and as a result, began to make odd decisions. Fortunately, those around him had the good sense to tell him to go to sleep. There's nothing helpful about an incoherent command.
3. Write things down. We set up three big markerboards in the fire station, one with "To Do/Get" one with "Messages" and one with random notes. We also kept a notebook. logging the times things were requested, when things happened and so forth. We should have kept a call log, we will next time.
4. It's really 72 hours before your real help arrives. Despite the fact that we had food and water and such, there were many homes that were utterly unreachable from about 17:00 on April 3 until about 09:00 on April 5. Those folks had to make do on their own. Even if we wanted to, there was no way to get to the houses - not even by boat. That 72 hour kit might just be for use in your home.
5. If you're a ham radio operator and you plan to help, please don't show up ill-equipped to do your job, and don't expect us to have anything you need to get on the air. Also don't expect to go home 4 hours after you arrive. The first person we had was useless and we sent that person packing, as they were taking up valuable space and breathing our useful air though their mouth. The next person was GREAT! He was a skilled, excellent communicator, and was always on top of things. He slept at the station with all of us and was as much a member of our fire company as anyone else.
6. Don't expect things to work without maintaining them, We spent a huge chunk of time on April 3rd testing and re-testing our equipment, changing the oil in trash pumps, checking o-rings on suction lines, checking and re-checking first aid kids and so forth. Although we check our equipment regularly, we still found small repairs needed, This paid off. During the floods, we had 2 marine rescue calls and 3 fire calls, and one civilian showing up at the station with a serious laceration and large loss of blood, while at the same time having to deal with evacuations, road closures and incident management. The last thing we needed was to have gear that was not ready to go.
7. Things break. Despite the effort to test things beforehand, we still had equipment downtime. Even the best gear breaks. Have backups.
8. Ask for help. We had help from fire departments that were 35 miles away from ours. We got equipment from the National Guard. We rented a 2,500 gallon per minute pump to clear a flooded field (14 million gallons of water in that pump-out job - took 9 hours). There's lots of help if you need it, just ask, You can't do it alone.
9. People Get Hot. We had state police around more than once as tempers flared when we closed roads. After being verbally assaulted more than once while manning a roadblock, it occurred to me that the reason the National Guard is called out in longer term disaster situations like these isn't just for their big trucks and heavy equipment. It's because the people with those trucks and heavy equipment carry M-16's and MP5's.
10. Fuel and Water. Need I say more? We stockpiled lots of both - we used lots of both.
That's all for now. Any questions gladly answered.
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