Full Recall to Duty
Last evening the Minneapolis Fire Department did something that is very rarely done these days…. they had a recall of all off-duty firefighters because of the bridge event. A recall brings the maximum force that you can muster to operate at a major incident. The main reason that it is a rare order given is primarily due to the normal procedures now of utilizing mutual aid agreements to flood an emergency incident as well as provide backfills to man the vacated stations (usually called fill-ins of transfers).
Back in Ye Olden Days a recall was the only way to quickly bolster an emergency force. As I mentioned yesterday, there were no suburbs to draw on. Also, all the firefighters lived nearby. Things are different now, with the practiced procedures of using neighboring departments to move up to the involved stations you can have a continuing wave of fire and rescue forces rolling in to your incident as well as covering the boxes left open from the primary emergency. Usually within a couple of hours the situation has calmed to the point where units can begin returning to service and the scattered coverage will be restored to a more normal availability.
But in a situation like that in Minneapolis there will be a prolonged job on the emergency site itself and the need for on-site coverage will remain for perhaps days. This is where today’s recalls are utilized. First to man the reserve apparatus and get your own people back into the fire stations, and second, to establish a full relief crew and begin rotating FF’s through the disaster scene. Not only does this bring fresh troops in on a regular basis, but it allows any un-used apparatus on the scene to be brought back to the stations and made available for calls again.
While I don’t yet know what Minneapolis’ procedure is (or if they even have one), the usual action for an extended operation like this is to combine all three shifts/platoons into two and operate a 12 hrs. shift rotation with no days off until the situation is mitigated. Does your department have a procedure or plan in place for a similar event? Do you know what your own response potential is? Do you have standing orders on how, when or where you report to in the event of a recall? This is a good time to review these questions and make sure you know the answers.
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Several days ago I was talking about those “all region” DVD players and the advantages of being able to purchase foreign disks. My personal preferences are mostly tv series that are unavailable in the U. S. Or in some cases, box sets that are considerably cheaper from overseas suppliers. So where do you look for these opportunities?
If I have a definite title or series in mind already, the first place I go is to eBay. I enter the title in the search engine and then scroll down to the eBay stores “buy it now” section. There will usually be a good selection of competitive offerings by well-established distributors who are geared up for the international trade. I have never had a problem with any of these dealers and the airmail delivery is very prompt and not unreasonable. Sometimes you even find that your selection is availabe in our Region 1 format.
Another choice is to search Amazon’s British arm at www.amazon.co.uk If you already have an Amazon account here in the U. S. then it will be valid there, too. They give outstanding service. Don’t waste your time searching through the BBC’s extensive library of offerings. Those snoots won’t sell to North Americans.
Still another alternative is to just use a regular internet search engine. Put in your show title+dvd and you’ll find plenty of dealers wanting to do business with you. Just because the major American networks have switched to commercial-laden garbage programming doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy some quality shows with superb writing and acting.
