There was an article in yesterday’s Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch (HERE) that reported on a citizens’ committee that had been appointed to look for cost savings in the Columbus Division of Fire, aka: the fire department.  Unfortunately for the good citizens of Columbus, the committee is headed by a lawyer.

In their report back to the mayor they are recommending that the FD’s emergency ambulance service be retrograded back to an all-BLS service and drop the paramedic level of care.  Citing a dubious 4-yr.-old report that was based on even older surveys, they claim that the overall outcomes of medical care between BLS and ALS are almost the same.  In other words, basic stabilization and transportation (in the big city environment) is just about as effective as doing the full-blown start-an-IV-and-administer-drugs scenario.

The last time that Columbus was all-BLS was in 1968.  It was over ten years ago that they upgraded from a two-tiered system to the all-Paramedic level of today.  I don’t think that Mr. Mayor and the city council will be willing to degrade the response level to save a relatively small amount of payroll.  Those savings would be partially negated by the lower fees collected from the insurance companies by administering the lesser care.

I’m wondering if there is perhaps a personal agenda here on the part of the lawyer who is proposing this.  Call me cynical, but I wouldn’t be surprised that if they did downgrade, then as soon as somebody died before they arrived at an ER, this same lawyer would be filing an action against the city for not providing the best emergency medical care that they’re capable of.

On the other extreme, not long ago FossilMedic and I were chatting about how some more-sparsely populated counties in the U. S. are passing regulations (usually at the insistence of the county medical director) that force ambulance squads to upgrade to paramedic level.  The demand on the volunteers in these mostly-rural areas tends to be too burdensome because of the need for a volunteer to spend every single weekend for about two years to complete the paramedic registry training.  Follow that up with such a low response  rate that their skills rapidly degrade from lack of sufficient usage.  And instead of getting a good, experienced BLS crew, they’re now getting no response at all.

But that’s another topic for another day.  We have to get this equipment checked out now.  I’ll dash on over and get the coffee going.

FossilMedic tipped me off first thing this morning that Mt. Redoubt, that reluctant volcano in Alaska, finally blew its top last night.  The Alaska Volcano Observatory which has been Twittering regularly every hour since the alert first went out, says that so far there have been “FOUR large explosions” (their terms) beginning at 10:38 pm Alaska time (2:38 am Eastern).  Subsequent explosions followed at 11:02 pm, 12:14 am and 1:39 am.

This photo from AP taken last month shows a
steam emission from the mouth of Mt. Redoubt

They’re estimating that the largest one sent a smoke plume 50,000 feet high and that the ash hasn’t yet settled  low enough to cover anything on the ground.  The National Weather Service is saying that ashfall is expected to be light, but I don’t think that’s taking into account any further eruptions that are certain to follow.

The last time that this very active volcano erupted  was nineteen years ago when it started on December 14, 1989, and continued for six months.

This remarkable photo was taken in April, 1990, during the last
eruption and shows an ash cloud forming after one of the scores
of explosions associated with it.

So I expect the folks in Anchorage, the state’s largest city which is only 110 miles from the volcano, are ready for a possibly dimmed Springtime.  I’m wondering how much complacency has set in since the alert first went out for them to get their filter masks and food stocks at the ready back on January 30.  We’ve got some readers up in Alaska, so hopefully they’ll send us some notes telling us how the FD’s will be coping today with this.

One of our several volcano updates from last month has a map, a video and a good photo of an outbuilding taken in 1990 showing the three feet of ash on the ground all around it.  CLICK HERE to see it.

If you want to check the AVO’s live webcams, you can view one of them HERE and that page has the links to several other webcam locations that they operate.  But it won’t become daylight until well after noon Eastern time.  And they’re not too well-equipped to handle a million page hits-per-minute, either.  So be patient.

That gives us plenty of time to get this equipment checked out now while I go start the coffee.

Update:  KTVA-TV Anchorage has this brief video of the Doppler image of the first ash cloud.  The green part of the radar is snow.  The bright yellow, orange and red flashes that pop up just north of the volcano are the ash cloud:

There is an art form known as Trompe L’oeil (“fool the eye”) where the artist will paint a picture or mural directly onto a surface that is designed to look like it’s the real thing and not a painting.  Sometimes they are things like a window with curtains around it and a scenic view outside the “window.”  Or they may be a full wall or even a ceiling that have a 3-dimensional effect that cause you to stop for a moment while your brain tries to decide if it’s real or not.

John Pugh

In recent years there has been a variation of the trompe l’oeil where the artists use sidewalk chalk as the medium and apply their image directly on the pavement in a 3-D effect that really makes you pause.

Julian Beever

What complicates matters in this art form is the necessity to apply the image in just the right elongated design on the sidewalk so that when you view it from a few feet away it looks like it has proper dimensions.  Naturally, they look a lot better in photographs than they do when you’re walking past them.  I find this to be fascinating stuff.  But this image below was so realistic that you’ll notice that the pedestrians are trying to avoid stepping into the “hole.”

Julian Beever

It’s just downright amazing what talents and abilities can inhabit the human body, isn’t it?

You can see some more on Julian Beever’s website HERE, including a couple of  “how it’s done” shots which will leave you even more impressed with his planning and ability.

Julian Beever

We’ll go check out the equipment first, and I’ll start the coffee, then we can view some more 3-D art while we wait for the Sunday breakfast to be ready.

Update:
You can see some more 3-D sidewalk art HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Artist Edgar Mueller posted this video showing how he made one:

There’s something that I never seem to be able to grasp, and that’s why Spring doesn’t begin on the same day that the sunrise-to-sunset span is exactly 12 hours.  Spring arrived yesterday (Friday) according to the math wizards that spend their nights looking through telescopes and measuring great distances.  In my niche of the world we officially crossed the equinox (and just what in h— is an equinox, anyway?) at 7:44 am on Friday.

But it was back on Tuesday the 17th that the official sunup to sundown times were precisely 12 hours apart.  There’s a perfectly good explanation for that, but whenever I take the time to look up the reason why, I always forget what it is by the time the next equinox gets here six months later.  All I know is that it’s supposed to be Spring now but the nighttime temperatures are still dipping below freezing.  That’s not supposed to happen either, is it?

*  *  *

That devastating fire in Joliet, Illinois, yesterday is really going to hurt the entire area.  Disregard for the moment that the industry involved is a gambling venue.  It has to do with all the economic reliance of a wide group of businesses that are all intertwined with the main industry that in this case just happens to be a casino.

Sure, the Joliet city budget relies heavily on the tax revenues generated from gaming machines, meal taxes, etc.  But along with the several hundred employees of the casino there will be job losses and sales losses from the food purveyors (just think how many meals per day are served in a place like that), local hotels, gas stations and even the guy who patrols the parking lot starting up the cars with dead batteries.  This will be a tremendous financial hit for the entire area.

And when they rebuild this casino complex, let’s hope that they add a couple of drafting standpipes along the riverside.  Oh, yeah…how about some sprinklers, too?

We’d better get this equipment checked out.  I need to start some more coffee.  It’s getting late.

Update:  The casino itself employs 1,040 people.  The tax revenue generated for the state is roughly $87 million annually of which $14 million goes to the locality.