Fire Hydrants

“Some people change their ways when they see the light; others when they feel the heat”-Caroline Schoeder

In New York it's hot, hot, hot. We are breaking heat records with 100 F days so it comes as no suprise that people are looking for relief. The following news item was sent out by New York City:

Opening fire hydrants without spray caps is illegal, wasteful and dangerous. Illegally opened hydrants can lower water pressure, which can put lives at risk at hospitals and hinder fire-fighting by reducing the flow of water to hoses and pumps. The powerful force of an open hydrant without a spray cap can push children into oncoming traffic. New Yorkers should call 311 to report open hydrants.

Hydrants can be opened legally if equipped with a City-approved spray cap [pictured above]. One illegally opened hydrant wastes up to 1,000 gallons of water per minute, while a hydrant with a spray cap only puts out around 25 gallons per minute. Spray caps can be obtained by someone 18 or over, free of charge at local firehouses.

Bottom Line

Pundits are calling NYC the "Baked" apple. To escape the heat NYC opens up public cooling centers, such as Department for the Aging (DFTA) senior centers and New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) and Salvation Army community centers where air conditioning is available. To find the cooling center closest to you, call 311 (TTY: 212-504-4115) or log on to www.nyc.gov/oem.

Emergency Response Politics

"It was chaos. There was nobody there, nobody in charge. And there was nobody giving even water. The children . . . they're all just in tears. There are sick people. We saw . . . people who are dying in front of you."
- CNN producer Kim Segal, describing the New Orleans Convention Center the day after Hurricane Katrina

[Note: the Convention Center was NOT an official shelter like the Superdome. Thousands of people just showed up and expected to be taken care of in a city that was official abandoned. The media handled this very poorly- looking for blame instead of helping evacuate the people to real shelters or notifying officials. TV anchor, Ted Koppel, would accuse FEMA of negligence for NOT learning about the crisis at the convention center from TV news reports.]

A reader of the SurvivalBlog.com objects to Firefighter Charles disaster scenario that I quoted in yesterday's post.

"Firefighter Charles's statement about FEMA's response times shows a lack of understanding of how the process works. In the event of another Hurricane Katrina type natural disaster, the following things have to happen, in the following order:

1. Disaster strikes
2. Local officials setup an incident command
3. Local Emergency Operation Centers (EOCs) are activated. The local emergency operations plan (EOP) is put into action.
4. Mutual aid agreements are activated. If the disaster goes beyond this, then...
5. State EOCs are activated. State EOPs are put into action.
6. The state activates it's mutual aid agreements.
7. If the situation is not contained, the Governor declares a State Emergency. He can then.....
8. Appeal to the President to declare the event a federal disaster - whether it is a Stafford Act event or not.
9. FEMA is then activated and ordered to head the rescue/relief efforts. The FBI is the lead investigative agency for any criminal acts, while the BATFE is the lead law enforcement agency for anything law enforcement related such as security, etc."

Now there are some good points here but I think the responder protests too much. The process above makes Firefighter Charles's point even stronger. Before super-slow FEMA can respond, one has to wait for local bureaucracy and then state bureaucracy to run its course. This rarely happens quickly and you can still expect 72-hrs or more to pass before resources like food and mass shelter are available.

In the case of Katrina the emergency response process was stalled by politics. The mayor of New Orleans ordered everyone to abandon his city with just 19 hours notice. The New Orleans official evacuation plan was not activated; school buses sat unused that could have helped evacuate residents. Those who could not leave were ordered to go to shelter of "last resort" without any provisions for food, water, security, or sanitary conditions. The Louisiana Superdome was designed to handle 800 as a shelter but 30,000 arrived.

Immediately after the hurricane had passed on Aug 30, 2005, Michael Chertoff, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA's boss, tried to take over the federal, state, and local operations, citing the National Response Plan. This was refused by Governor Blanco of Louisiana who indicated that her National Guard could manage. President Bush, a former governor of Texas, would not overrule a governor acting within her constitutional rights of state leadership.

Still it is wrong to say the Federal Government did nothing. Naval ships were moved to the Gulf before the hurricane hit and Coast Guard helicopters rescued 35,000 individuals from flood waters. Approximately 58,000 National Guard personnel were activated to deal with the storm's aftermath, with troops coming from all 50 states. The Department of Defense also activated volunteer members of the Civil Air Patrol.

700,000 people applied to FEMA for temporary housing. Tens of thousands of trailers were used but in some parishes the local council refused the trailers (not wanting to create a permanent squatters camp perhaps?). Also FEMA would only deploy trailers to regions with working utilities. (Think of the sewage problems that would result otherwise). For those without trailers, FEMA paid for hotel rooms. Five years after the disaster, there are still 260 families in hotels being paid by FEMA.

A Congressional investigation after Katrina found that FEMA and the Red Cross "did not have a logistics capacity sophisticated enough to fully support the massive number of Gulf coast victims." It placed responsibility for the disaster on all three levels of government.

Bottom Line

The National Incident Management System (NIMS) always puts the onus for response on local governments. However local responders NEVER have the resources for a major emergency. In Westchester county with a population of almost 1 million, the local Red Cross and CERT teams have cots for only 30,000 people. If there were mass evacuation from an accident at Indian Point Nuclear power plant, we'd have to rely on neighboring counties and neighboring states for shelter. That requires lots of high-level politics and lots of time.

The worst part of this is that many townships in Westchester, NY refuse to stockpile supplies and designate shelters. Once a town has a shelter plan, they are responsible to maintain it. For towns without a shelter plan, the responsibility goes upon Westchester county.

http://perpetualpreparedness.blogspot.com/2008/09/waiting-for-cavalry.html
http://perpetualpreparedness.blogspot.com/2008/08/hurrican-ready.html

Hungry?

"Mamma mia,
that's-a spicy meat ball"
- Alka-Seltzer ad

After yesterday's meaty facts, I present an ultimate meat dish, the 100 layer lasagna with 50 layers of sauce and 50 layers of noodles. NY Magazine describes it this way:

Each 80-portion pan has to go into the oven by 1:30 P.M. every day. Otherwise, it doesn’t have enough time to cool and coalesce by dinner and completely collapses when you try to slice it. It takes three kitchen stations and many hands to put it together. Skewers hold it in place while it sets. You need a special spatula to serve it.

Available at Del Posto in NYC.

Bon appetit!

Crisis in Times Square

"We are very lucky," NYC Mayor Bloomberg said. "Thanks to alert New Yorkers and professional police officers, we avoided what could [have been] a very deadly event."

Early Saturday evening Times Square was seized with anxiety after a T-shirt vendor, Lance Orton, saw smoke billowing out of a Nissan sport-utility vehicle and alerted a NYPD officer. The Nissan Pathfider was parked with its engine running and hazards flashing near the Lion King theater. Inside was the makeshift bomb cobbled together with three 20-lb propane tanks, two 5-gallon jugs of gasoline and gunpowder from ordinary firecrackers. A small old-fashioned alarm clock was attached to a mysterious long locked metal box with wires coming out. Fortunately the detonator failed.

The heavy metal box was retrieved by a robot that smashed its way into the back window of the SUV, and was taken to a bomb disposal facility. Police inspected every other parked car for a second bomb and kept Times Square closed until 7:30 am Sunday morning. Many people missed Broadway shows or where unable to enter their hotel.

Bottom Line

Lance Orton, reluctant hero of the day, offered this advice to New Yorkers: "You see something, you say something."

Notify NYC Citywide Program

New York, New York
A hell of a town,
The Bronx is up and the Battery's down.
The People ride in a hole in the ground.
– lyrics to “New York, New York”

If you live or work in NYC, there is a new program for emergency alerts that completed its pilot phase on May 18 and has gone live.

“Notify NYC is a program designed to enhance New York City’s emergency public communication systems and streamline the delivery of important public information. This multi-agency initiative has included upgrades to the City’s existing Emergency Alert System (EAS), the development of the Emergency Television and Radio (ETVR) briefing sites and the development of an emergency Public Information Plan, which is managed by OEM to improve the coordination of public information during major emergencies. Building on the success of 311 and NYC.GOV, Notify NYC will integrate information and technology services for multiple City agencies, and provide the public with a one-stop destination for emergency and non-emergency notifications.” [NotifyNYC]

At the registration site, www.nyc.gov/notifynyc, you can elect to receive email, text messages or phone calls for Emergency Alerts, Emergency Parking Suspension, Public Health Notifications, School Notifications, and Significant Events.

Bottom Line

I encountered one glitch during registration. It asked for a voluntary home address with a mandatory zip code but then rejected my zip as being outside of NYC. In the site’s FAQ they state:

“Registration is open to everyone, but you will have to provide a valid NYC zip code that will indicate the area in which you are interested. You may want to register if you are a frequent visitor or if you are responsible for a friend or family member who lives in New York City.”

“You can add up to five (5) city addresses to your account. You can also add, remove, and edit these locations through your account settings by logging in.”