Severe Weather thread.

Seems like rather than beating up the guy in charge of cleaning the mess up, she should be going after whatever dinkus didn't shut the highways down before they filled up with stuck cars in the first place...

 

LOL. She seemed very emotional about it.

Truth and also
Not sure how much you've dealt with any emergency management. But that's the MO. Pretty much have no plan on how to deal with it. Figure it out as you go, then after the fact train for it in the future. But by the time it happens again, everyone seems to have forgotten how to deal with it.

Unless these people live a total unplugged life, they had to know this was coming. The goofs should of stayed home.

 

Yeah, I used train with a CERT team in our area, and the standard training is "this happened on X date, so we're going to train for that, but this exact event will probably never happen again. We're just hoping that the skills will translate into a kind-of-similar future event"
The training we got was always modeled after a recent event (Katrina, 9/11, Carmageddon, Sandy, etc). But I was never impressed with the responses from the MEMA (Maine Emergency Mangement) reps that were training us whenever we asked about how we were supposed to get mobilized, how/when they'd contact us, etc. It always consisted of basically "we'll just kind of wing it"

 

https://www.fema.gov/community-emergency-response-teams

I'm a CERT Instructor and we train for what is likely to happen here - tornadoes, ice storms and HAZMAT incidents. Take care of yourself, your family and your neighbors. We always have trouble getting participants before an incident, but after a local SHTF they're scrambling for information and training. Every little bit helps. I spend most of my time training DR teams rather than individuals, but that carries over and keeps the interest up until the next "disaster".

 

Yeah, I think she thought she was speaking with a PA Turnpike Commissioner rather than the guy they called in to clean up after the mess they made. She should have been grilling the Governor, not that poor schmuck.

 

She was speaking to the PEMA Director

Like, Wendy, WTF... he had no control over road prep and the idiots who cause the wreck

 

Yeah, we got a lot of training on treating frostbite, recognizing hypothermia, etc. in addition to the usual first aid stuff and disaster safety training. The guy in charge of our group was a former FEMA employee and had a ton of knowledge on the subject, but he was always getting into dick-measuring contests with MEMA and butting heads with other people in the group. Eventually I got sick of the politics and the bickering and just stopped going to the meetings, lol.

 

Basic SAR training is useful too. 2 weekends and you get a ton of outdoor skills from a SAR point of view.

http://www.nasar.org/

 

Exactly. Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, having nothing to do with the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, who should have taken steps to ensure this didn't happen. Like the guy said multiple times in the interview, PEMA is called in to aid after a "disaster" happens. It is not their responsibility to plow the highways or close them in anticipation of a storm.

 

Had a couple of those trainings, first when I was skiing as a patrolman for the local ski slope and then again as part of that CERT team. Lots of good info, and they combined the one when I was a patrolman with a winter wilderness survival training for in case the person you were searching for was too injured to move, or if you managed to get lost yourself.
You don't realize how much organization effort has to go into one of those until you've seen the training. Seems like a lot of people think that SAR is just a bunch of people randomly walking around in the woods hoping to find the missing person.

 

Completely agree.

Although, even the TP Comm. can't help it when the ppl crash.

There's a recording when the accident happened... the plow truck drivers were staggered, 3-wide, plowing the entire TP and said, "there's a few trucks wrecked at mile-marker 125. We're stopped"

 

Thank you guys for not jumping on the "government sucks" bandwagon. I work for state government, and have almost daily interaction with members of our DEM responding to hazmat incidents. They are extremely dedicated folks, most of whom are former fire fighters and emergency responders. You guys are right, they are tasked with long-term planning for, and helping to organize responses to, many different kinds of incidents including petroleum, hazmat, radiological, weather, terrorism, etc., -related incidents. They are not responsible (or authorized) for making the call to close a major highway unless they are placed into incident command, and even then it is a big deal. Prior to an incident, like a snow storm, people much higher up than the agency director must make the decision to close a highway. The reporter needs to learn how her own government is structured. She also needs to realize that her saying that the director knew the storm was coming for a week prior also applies to the public and their decision to venture out during a major snow storm. They took chances too, the whole thing can't be blamed on one person. Seems like the local responders and PEMA did a great job making sure folks were safe and had food.

 

http://youtu.be/XJrZFiZcIgs

 

If you live somewhere that loses power regularly, I'd highly recommend getting a couple of the Aladdin oil lamps over the regular flat-wick units. I just picked up my first one at the antique store this weekend and that sucker is BRIGHT.

 

I know they're pretty pricey new. What that run you at the antique shop? If you don't mind me asking.

 

$30 for the lamp, but it needed a new wick and a new mantle. I already had them on hand, but replacing them would be another $30.
The new ones are anywhere from $150-$300, though.

Worth the extra $, in my opinion, over a regular oil lamp. I'm sure they're more of a fuel hog than a standard lamp, but the light output is incredible. I can read a book without eye strain, or cook supper without risking a knife wound because I couldn't see what I was cutting.
Comparison:

 

Nice. There is a hell of a difference for sure!

 

I have one of those guys. It sits on the top of a bookcase for show. I should fire it up.
Are they called hurricane lamps too?
What do you use for oil in them?

 

Might be a local term for them. We always called these things hurricane lamps:


The Aladdins have their own fuel you can buy, or you can use regular kerosene (what they were originally designed for), but I'm using the Klean Heat stuff because it has less of an odor than regular Kero and is less expensive than the Aladdin-branded stuff. Regular lamp oil apparently gums them up, so don't use that.