A FIRE STARTED IN A DOWNTOWN BUILDING in Crystal Springs, Mississippi, early Monday morning and destroyed four businesses.
WAPT-TV
The fire was discovered around 1 am in a restaurant and then spread to other buildings. One of them had apartments above and WAPT-TV tells us: authorities said the fire started in a building that included a framing shop, a restaurant, an alteration business and the city’s Masonic lodge, all of which were completely consumed. Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Jim Kitchens is master of the lodge. Kitchens said the lodge also had nearly a century of records and the Masonic tools used in lodge rituals.
WLBT-TV
The fire depleted the town’s water supply and caused most of the area to lose electricity.
WAPT-TV Ch. 16 filed this video report from the scene:
Rhett “The Fire Critic” Fleitz BEAT Dave Statter in posting short clip on this two-alarm Sunday morning suspicious fire in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco. (Fire Critic) (STATter911)
This 14:07 clip includes the crowd shouting “where is the water.”
Gloriaf09 added this commentary to her video:
This morning we encountered a fire raging up the street from our apartment. It took the fire dept forever to get the water to it from the exterior. I’m sure there was a logical explanation; I suspect Back Draft (the movie) would be a likely candidate to explain the reasons for the delay on the front exterior for wet/dry extinguisher deployment. The San Francisco fire department did their job and put the fire out!
Maybe Dave needs to develop a fireground commentator service for active events.
The Red Cross was on the scene and gave temporary accommodations to those displaced by the fire. These people might have been partially comprised of a group of barefoot Loinsters in homey clothes we saw watching the flames with sadness, while holding a cat in a pet carrier.
Everybody else was morbidly voyeuristically taking tons of pictures and videos (including us) and offering up unwarranted, armchair quarterback advice to the SFFD (surprisingly, as we’re smartasses, not us). Just for future notice gang, our firefighters have a pretty damned good idea of when to turn on the water.
SF Appeal: Red Cross Seeks Volunteers To Help 26 People Displaced In “Suspicious” Tenderloin Fire (HERE) Justin (TheHappyMedic) Schorr posted a response on Rhett’s blog:
After speaking to some of the first due folks, initial report was nothing showing from the street. Crews made entry to find the building charged with smoke, struck a working fire. Entry was delayed due to the entry door barricaded from the inside. Lines were eventually led through the window inside to make the door.
Crews were able to ventilate natural openings and a lot of heat made a search of the floor above trouble.
This looks to be a 4 story type 5, likely with 12 units. Zero clearance on the sides, no easy view of the rear of the building. Getting to the roof ASAP is the easiest way to do the “360″ and check all exposures, lightwells, secondary victims etc, hence the quick sticks.
BEER IN GERMANY IS MUCH CHEAPER THAN it is in Denmark. So naturally, there are clusters of beer stores along the German-Danish border catering to the fleets of vans and other small trucks who load up to take some back home. Early Saturday morning, one of the Danish entrepreneurs failed to secure his load properly before heading back home on a rain-slickened highway. While traveling, his vanload of beer shifted causing the vehicle to spin off the road and crash into a pole.
The impact itself wasn’t too hard, but the sudden shift forward of the hundreds of pounds of beer cans nailed the driver and crushed him to death.
Before the van could be towed away, all of the beer had to be offloaded by hand. So who better to do it than a gang of firefighters? Most of them have probably already been practicing picking up cans of beer recently, anyway.
Einsatz-Magazin has the story and a photo gallery HERE.
THE MUNHALL AREA PREHOSPITAL SERVICES is a private ambulance firm that provides emergency ambulance care for three townships in western Pennsylvania. The paramedics employed by MAPS have been working under an expired contract since first of the year, but their patience was pressed to the limit recently when the company reduced their workweek in an attempt to eliminate overtime pay.
The sudden and drastic change amounted to an immediate 30% decrease in their paychecks, so the members of Local 7 of the Fraternal Association of Professional Paramedics began a wildcat strike Saturday morning at 7 am.
WTAE-TV image
The “response time” crisis brought about a quick emergency meeting between the union and the mayors of Munhall, Homestead and West Homestead boroughs at the Munhall borough building. Within hours they had come to an agreement to a new shift schedule replacing the older schedule of two 24-hour shifts per week with one that works three 16-hour shifts and preserves their overtime pay. The strike was over and everybody went back to work at 3 pm that day.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has the STORY.
WTAE-TV has a video report HERE.
Have you taken the time yet to check out the Firefighter Netcast offerings? This growing internet “radio” mode is certainly going to be around for a long time. The advantages over terrestrial radio are obvious, especially the feature where you can log in during the “live” netcast portion and participate in the forum including chatting with other listeners about the topic while it is still going on.
Rhett Fleitz (Fire Critic) and John Mitchell (Fire Daily) have been presenting the program for just the past six or seven months, but they are continually developing it as they go and the concept is getting better all the time. Notably, they have taken on some additional participants and expanding the programming outward. Wisely, they are not rushing the growth, but taking the steady-but-sure route. Even if you miss the live netcast, all the programs are archived and downloadable so that you can play them through your earpods while you are jogging or doing the dishes. So I recommend that you CLICK HERE to get used to this information method and maybe even get into the habit of listening in every week. Generally, they are netcasting on Wednesdays and Thursdays for the most part.
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I have long been a close observer of the advertising game. For some reason, I have an inherent interest in what and how promotions are pushed out and the innovative ideas that come from the advertising agencies. A good success story currently running is the imaginative tv ad campaign here in the U. S. for the GEICO auto insurance company. Their cave-man series caught on with the public and they ran with it with still today an occasional cave-man ad being issued. And of course, the gekko-themed ads are hot these days. I appreciate the casting job they did in getting the actor who plays the executive vice president-of-something in most of the commercials. That guy is perfect for the part, don’t you agree?
Another thing that I find challenging is trying to identify the target audience for the ads. Many of them are aimed for a specific group of potential customers and the ads are cleverly constructed to catch their attention and hold it for 15 or 30 seconds while the sales pitch is tossed their way. I have notice recently a growing number of tv ads that are obviously aimed at the aging Hippy generation. Probably because they are reaching that time of life where they have more discretionary income and can afford extra’s or frivolous purchases. You can spot these ads immediately because they are led off with a blast of that Hippy style of happy-hoppy music with hand clapping and musical bouncing that brings to mind a picture of the flower children and their tamborines dancing around the flower garden. At least that music is more pleasant to hear than some of the other noise that populates some ads.
You might be wondering why, if the message is aimed at people in their 50′s and 60′s, are the actors always so young? That’s all part of the pandering process, you see. The viewer usually carries a self-image of still being young-looking and active, even though in reality they are growing bags under their eyes and their backs hurt all the time. But they can still snap their fingers in time with the music and look at the tv screen to see what it’s all about.
We’d better snap onto the equipment checklist now. It’s Monday and that means the long list, so let’s get started. I’m going to make some more coffee.
Firegeezer apologizes for the tardy posting of this week’s episode of “Emergency!”. A dying modem set us back a few hours today. Thank you for your patience.
Season Four, Episode 13
The Parade
En route to a firemen’s parade in their 1920 fire engine, the paramedics are embarrassed by a real fire.
A SATURDAY MORNING FIRE IN A ROWHOUSE in Baltimore, Maryland, chased four residents out into the street, but the father of the family didn’t make it. The victim was found after the fire was out in a 2nd-story bedroom. The first-engine was on the scene promptly but were unable to make the stairs to search for the missing man. The first-due truck that would have probably been on the scene in two minutes was out of service due to a rotating brownout that had it shut down for the day.
WJZ-TV
The local citizens are outraged at the lack of response, for even they know that the ladder truck might have had a chance to get into the bedroom through a window and perhaps saved the victim. While it is entirely possible that the man was already dead when the first units arrived, the locals are still upset that he never had a chance because of the city’s choice of budget cutting. WJZ-TV reports:
Family friends surround the shell of Wise’s home, reeling from his death and angry that budget cuts left a fire company just a mile away unstaffed as his home went up in flames, a move they and the firefighters’ union sharply criticized.
“This is unacceptable. This, right here, is unacceptable when they’re two minutes away,” said Christina Mokriski.
“I don’t think there should have been a time when it needed to be closed or not. We’ve got children. We’ve got lives that they need to protect,” said Corrie Meador.
1) In addition to Truck 23 on a closed rotation, one of the closer ladder companies would have been Truck 2 from the Steadman station, but the city abolished that company last summer.
2) The Baltimore Fire spokesman has not accurately described the NFPA 1710 standard. Getting the first four-person fire company on the scene within 4 minutes is good, but I am not sure that the city assembled a team of 14-15 firefighters within nine minutes.
SAN DIEGO — San Diego police Friday are investigating an incident in Pacific Beach in which someone drove a yellow Corvette onto the beach and left the pricey vehicle stuck in the ocean.
The incident occurred near Crystal Pier around 9:10 p.m. Thursday, San Diego police said.
According to police, witnesses reported seeing the $50,000-car doing “doughnuts” and “spin-outs” on the sand before it became stuck.
When police arrived, the three occupants ran from the scene. Two of the occupants — a husband, 39, and his 36-year-old wife — were detained and sent to detox for public intoxication. Their names were not released because they were not arrested.
Police thought someone might have been trapped in — or under — the car so firefighters and a helicopter were summoned for a possible rescue attempt. Lifeguards also helped in the search.
Police haven’t been able to locate the suspected driver but if they are able to identify him, he may have to pay for the cost of the police, helicopter and fire department response.
go HERE to read the entire article, get the story of how a stranger was driving the Vette and see another video.
A BUS CARRYING HANDICAPPED CHILDREN & ADULTS CRASHED Saturday night near Minas Gerais, Brazil, killing 11 people and leaving 22 others injured.
The bus was returning from a trip to a sports festival for “special needs” adults and children when the driver lost his brakes. He was behind another bus, but gaining on it. So he had little choice but to try and pass the leading bus as they were approaching a 1-lane bridge. When the passing bus tried to cut back in front of the other, the buses touched and the faulty bus glanced off and rolled down a 100-ft. embankment into a river.
The Diamantina Fire Department and emergency ambulance squad attended the wreck and removed the victims. Nobody was injured in the second bus.
March 6, 2010 article by Rita Delfiner in New York Post “Shot pilot’s heroic focus” (HERE)
March 8, 2010 CNN article “Wounded pilot evacuates casualties in Afghanistan”
(HERE)
THE moment a hero Chinook pilot was shot in the head during a rescue mission in Afghanistan has been captured in footage obtained by The London Sun.
Our video shows Flight Lieutenant Ian Fortune, 28, battling to save the 18 men on board his £30million helicopter.
In clips seen for the first time, he is heard calmly telling his passengers: “Just to let you know, I took a round through my front windscreen which came up and hit me in the head.
“I’ve got a bit of a crack and a bleed there.”
The bullet-riddled Chinook then starts malfunction and Flt Lt Fortune is heard saying: “MAYDAY. This is Tricky 73. Nine miles to the south.”
Flight Lieutenant Ian Fortune
He steered the chopper back to base despite being covered in blood – and was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross.
The drama near Garmsir, Helmand, unfolded as he picked up casualties in a firefight between US forces and rebels.
As Flt Lt Fortune, of Kingston, Surrey, lifted off, a bullet penetrated his helmet, causing severe bleeding. More bullets hit the controls.
Mike Brewer, who was on board filming a Discovery Channel documentary, said: “The Chinook was bucking around – limping back to base.
“When we made it back engineers looked at the helicopter with open mouths. No one can understand how it could be shot 12 times and still fly.”
Keith Martin is the founding editor and publisher of Sports Car Market magazine and a major player in the collectible car industry.
In a May 2005 editorial “The End of Collectible Cars” Martin described how he would use a spectrum of cars to provide memorable tactile experiences for young motorheads:
If I were giving the neighborhood kids a lesson in Car Connoisseurship 101, I’d be sure it included a little bit of everything.
1961 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Veloce Sprint
It would offer them a chance to understand the idiosyncracies of sports cars, including:
just how well a Bug Eye Sprite sticks to the road all the way to its top speed of about 45 mph
how an early air-cooled 911 makes an umistakeably raspy sound when fired up on a cold morning,
how you’ll need at least 6,000 rpm to get an Alfa Giulietta Veloce off the line.
They’d get a chance to lay twin strips of rubber by dropping the clutch on a 383 Road Runner, and feel how the entire chassis twitches and shakes when you give full throttle to a Camaro with a 396.
Then they’d spend a day learning to crank a Model T, and pilot a right-drive, center-shift Bentley 3-Liter.
1925 "Brooklands" Bentley 3-liter
Above all, they would learn to think about the intent of the engineers and designers when each of these types of cars was constructed.
What were their goals?
How did they measure their own successes?
What was their competition?
Which of them are blue-chip collectibles, and why?
Man, I would take that course.
If we were to develop a program for fire apparatus operators, what experiences would you include?
A CCTV CAMERA IN RUSSIA shows this traffic cop doing most things right, except maybe standing in the traffic lane, while he questions a driver. But he did have his orange vest on. However, it doesn’t help all that much when a pack of color-blind wolves come around the bend:
The announcement on Friday from Switzerland was pretty impressive. Either I didn’t know, or I had forgotten that the Swiss government has been constucting what is the world’s longest tunnel through the Alps to open up a more efficient railroad link between northern Europe and the southern half of the continent. You can’t blame anyone for forgetting about it ….. construction began 17 years ago and rail traffic isn’t expected to begin for another six more.
But on Friday the huge drilling machine broke through the final six feet of rock and the two borings that had been working toward each other for more than 15 years were finally connected leaving one shaft – 35 miles long.
This dramatic photograph from Reuters caught the moment that
the drill bit broke through the rock as hundreds of sappers looked on.
Just as amazing to me is their ability to begin boring through solid rock from two locations 35 miles apart and maintain the accuracy to meet right on. When the shaft opened up the deviation between the two borings was a mere 8 cm (3 inches) horizontally and 1 cm (1/3-inch) vertically. How about that?
While this new route does shave some distance off the current path that trains use, its primary advantage over the old route will be the time factor. This dual-shaft tunnel also eliminates scores of curves and inclines which will allow trains to travel consistently at over 150 mph. The amount of freight haulage will increase dramatically and is expected to be a huge economic boost.
If you want to read more about this engineering marvel, CLICK HERE. There is also a good photo gallery of the construction HERE.
Before you get involved in that though, let’s get this equipment checked out. I’ll get some more coffee started.
Part One of this 3-part series is HERE.
Part Two is HERE.
Thursday, Day 4: On the next day of the live exercise, activities shifted locale to the nearby village of “Santar”. Following the previous day’s attack on the stadium, the local mayor has sent an urgent request for training of residents to protect themselves against a possible assault on the village with chemical weapons. Units of the ASSISTEX force are deployed to Santar and quickly instruct 20 villagers in the use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).
In due course, residents in the area discover two unexploded grenades and two suspicious packages that may be Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) at the gate to the village.
The ASSISTEX command center is notified and deploys a bomb disposal team to the scene. They safely recover the grenades and one of the IEDs.
On examining the second IED, the disposal expert suspects it may be rigged with a chemical weapons agent. A mobile x-ray ‘gun’ that can detect chemical agent from up to 30 meters is trained on the IED but finds only a conventional explosive, and the device is disposed of with a blast from a high-pressure water cannon.
Around noon, Santar is struck with chemical weapons rockets. The ASSISTEX command post deploys all available national and international assets to the village. The trainees don their PPEs and search the village and surrounding area for casualties. With the assistance of international search-and-rescue teams, more than 80 casualties are brought to a mobile medical unit that has set up outside the ‘hot zone’ around the village. The casualties receive pre-triage to ascertain the severity and nature (chemical/non-chemical) of their injuries, are decontaminated, and then removed from the area for treatment at a mobile hospital according to their injuries.
Meanwhile, an OPCW Investigation of Alleged Use (IUA) sampling team arrives and takes water samples from a well inside the hot zone. After external decontamination, the sample containers are transferred to an OPCW mobile laboratory for analysis to identify the chemicals. Under OPCW escort to maintain chain of custody, a split sample is then escorted by OPCW personnel to the airport and shipped to a pre-determined certified laboratory for confirmation of the results.
At the same time that events are playing out at Santar, the ASSISTEX command post receives reports of more suspected IEDs that have been found in a sports hall near the stadium, scene of the previous day’s attack. Urban search-and rescue (USAR) specialists arrive to evacuate casualties and mark the locations of the suspected IEDs. Bomb disposal experts are then called in defuse the devices.
At 15:45 the Local Emergency Management Authority (LEMA) declared the situation under control and ASSISTEX operations are concluded.
Friday, Day 5:
The final day was used to pack up and prepare to return home. Also there were interiews to gather impressions and comments on the results of the evolutions and evaluations of the overall exercise.
There are several videos along with a large photo gallery (from which these pics were taken) in the Assistex 3 official website HERE. The photograpy and videography are excellent, but keep in mind that the website was assembled by people from a culture quite different than ours (including reading from right to left), so you have to click around the left sidebar and see what you come across. And remember that to play the videos, you have to click on the black screen to start them.
LAST SATURDAY ON OCTOBER 9, a 19-yr.-old Bellevue, Washington, woman was charged with assault after she repeatedly stabbed another woman while they were attending an anger-management class.
A court services contractor was conducting the mandated course for probationary offenders when Faribah Maradiaga entered the classroom late and began arguing before attacking the victim.
Maradiaga walked into a classroom on the Bellevue College campus, where a court services agency rents space for the anger management class, around 9 a.m. Saturday while a video on anger management was being shown, according to the charges. Maradiaga started complaining about the movie and disrupting the class, according to the documents, when the victim told Maradiaga “the video was good and to give it a chance.”
Maradiaga, who was sitting two rows behind the victim, then stood up and started talking “trash” before pulling out a knife with a 3-inch blade and stabbing the other woman, police and prosecutors say.
The charges say Maradiaga then threatened to kill the victim’s family.
The failing student already has a pending assault charge before this and she is being held on $50,000 bail. Her classmate was taken to the hospital where she was treated for two stab wounds in her upper arm and shoulder. She is expected to make a full recovery.
A FIRE IN A BELLEVUE, NEBRASKA, APARTMENT COMPLEX burned out an entire 12-unit building early Saturday morning.
WOWT-TV image
The alarm was called at 3:45 am and the first units found the entire third floor fully involved. All four Bellevue stations were on the job and several companies from Omaha Fire Department were called to assist. Despite the early hour, everybody was able to escape the fire safely.
The fire was knocked down not long after 6:30, but the loss was complete to the building that presented an approach challenge because it was in a wooded area. A Bellevue FD spokesman said that the fire started in one unit after the resident turned on the oven to cook and then fell asleep. The early estimate of loss is over $1 million. No injuries have been reported.
James Cleverly provides one perspective on the London Fire Brigade dispute:
2002 St Mary’s Station, Southampton http://socialistworld.net/doc/412
(The strike) has been called for the most trivial of reasons, not job losses, not pay cuts, not longer contractual hours, this strike is about a small change in their shift patterns. At the moment firefighters work two 9-hour day shifts, then two 15-hour night shifts and then get four days off. The new plan will be the same in all respects other than the day and night shifts will both become 12-hours long, meaning that they still have a 48-hour working week and four protected days off.
What these changes will mean that crews are not swapping shifts during the morning and evening rush hours (as they currently do) and more fire prevention work can be done (traditionally day shift work). These changes will bring them into line with other fire brigades across the country.
Going from 8 hour day shifts to 12 hour day shifts increases the time available for the brigade to perform fire prevention activities.
This benefit is pointed out in the consultant’s report on Dorset Fire and Rescue (above) and in the description of the success Merseyside Fire and Rescue in last week’s article in The Economist. (HERE)
Tristan Kirk’s article quotes Brian Coleman, chairman of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, which governs London Fire Brigade. “We’ve been discussing this for five years and have offered to compromise, so it’s time for the FBU to stop blocking these changes.” (HERE)
Maybe Coleman has been getting conflict resolution advise from Prince George’s County (!!) (HERE)
THE AURORA-COLDEN FIRE DISTRICT in Erie County, New York, has been undergoing an intensive audit by the State Comptroller’s office since May, following a request by a local official. Yesterday (Friday) the auditors released a report on their findings and turned the report over to the Erie County District Attorney for criminal investigation.
The report singles out the fire district’s (now former) treasurer, Gerard J. Whittington,67, for the misappropriation of $331,813 in fire district funds. Shortly after the audit began, the fire district removed Whittington from his post. Whittington was a long-time member of the West Falls Volunteer Fire Company, a part of the fire district, for more than 40 years. He had been treasurer for the fire district since about 1980 and also operated a local firetruck repair business. In recent months he has closed his firetruck business.
West Falls fire station
The auditor’s report lists the discrepancies found including:
• Forty-four checks totaling $242,758 were listed as voided on the warrant reviewed by the fire district board or were not listed at all.
• Fourteen checks totaling $56,000 had supporting documentation that indicated the money went elsewhere, such as transferred to another district bank account or another company.
• The district paid the treasurer’s business $15,000 more than the amounts due for the goods and services provided by the business.
• An $8,000 district credit card convenience check was written to the treasurer’s business, and $10,055 was charged on the district’s credit card for supplies delivered to the treasurer’s business.
The Buffalo News reports also:
Two days after auditors contacted Whittington, he transferred $106,388 from his personal bank account into the district’s checking account, state officials said. When auditors asked him about the transfer, Whittington said he held district money in his personal investments as an investment strategy for the district to obtain a better interest rate, according to the audit summary.
The treasurer’s monthly reports to the board indicated the district held $104,000 in certificates of deposit, but auditors said they found no evidence of such CDs. The board was unaware the treasurer was holding the district’s money in his personal accounts, the audit said.
The Buffalo News lists several more discrepancies and you can read the full STORY HERE.
The State Comptroller also strongly admonished the Aurora-Colden Fire District commissioners for failing to ever perform any audits on their accounts, writing “Local officials can’t just hand someone the checkbook and walk away. There have to be checks and balances. Local officials have to watch every taxpayer dime, and $331,813 is a lot of taxpayer dimes.”
WIVB-TV Ch. 4 Buffalo filed this brief video report:
I came across this photo on the web the other day. Have you ever seen one of these?
This is the country’s first commercially-available mobile phone. It was available in 1964 and designed to be used in automobiles. That identifier stamped into the face plate says, BELL SYSTEM made by GENERAL ELECTRIC (with the GE logo placed between the words). It would be more properly described as a radio-phone because that is how it worked.
The instrument pictured was mounted under the car’s dashboard, but that is not the complete package. The guts of the phone was a suitcase-sized box that weighed about 80 lbs. and was bolted into the trunk of the car. It was filled with vacuum tubes and transformers, etc. Every call had to be handled personally by one of the phone company operators who would receive the request via the radio transmission, then assemble the phone links to connect the call through. To say it was cumbersome to use is an understatement. And the high labor demand just to complete a call in or out made it quite expensive, costing several dollars per call. The power drain on the car’s electrical system was so great that if you were using it at night time, the headlamps would dim down so low that you could barely see where you were going.
And yet with all those hindrances, they had 1.5 million “mobiles” in service. But the difficulty and expense of operating them was just too much to make them feasible for the time being and after a couple of years the service was discontinued. Multi-tasking would have to wait for the microchip era to arrive before it could resume.
Now aren’t we the lucky ones? As I’m typing this out on my computer, you have an incoming text message arriving in your pocket telling you that it’s time to get this equipment checked out now. I’m going to get the coffee started. It’s still made the same way it was in 1964.
Dick Murray, Transport Correspondent for the London Evening Standard filed this report:
London firefighters are to stage two crippling one-day strikes starting on 23 October, it was announced today.
The first strike, in which London will only be served by 27 fire engines, will be followed by a further stoppage on Monday 1 November with the warning of more to come after that.
Each strike will be for eight hours starting at 10am and finishing at 6pm.
It threatens the worst strikes by firefighters since the national stoppage eight years ago when troops were deployed – but they won’t be used this time.
The London Fire Brigade (LFB) insists it has contingency measures in place to deal with emergency situations – the capital remains on high alert as a result of the continuing terrorist threat.
The LFB has already withdrawn 27 fire engines – almost a fifth of London’s fleet – and has them ready to use during strike days. (…)
While troops were used eight years ago the government has since changed the criteria by withdrawing military support from the UK’s 46 fire and rescue services during any period where business was disrupted – including strikes. Military resources are now needed overseas.
Individual fire brigades are legally required to make their own contingency plans.
Brian Coleman, chairman of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, which governs London Fire Brigade, called for dialogue to resolve the dispute.
He said: “Firefighters are going to be striking over plans to reduce a 15 hour night shift by three hours, and add those three hours to a 9 hour day shift.
“That is all these proposals seek to do, no station closures, no increase in hours and no change to the four day rest period between shifts.
“This is about making more time in the day for vital training and fire prevention work.
“We’ve been discussing this for five years and have offered to compromise, so it’s time for the FBU to stop blocking these changes.”
Note from Mike Ward: The proposal is to fire every firefighter and re-hire them under a different labor agreement.
Tuesday:
Preparations for the exercise were completed on Day 2 (Tuesday) with the assembly of all coordination units, national teams and equipment at the 7 of November Sport Complex outside of Tunis, together with final planning meetings to coordinate activities.
Wednesday, Day 3: Based on intelligence reports, the “Republic of Daniria” suspects that it may be attacked with chemical weapons by an armed separatist movement in October, possibly during a major sports event. As a State Party of the OPCW, under Article X of the Chemical Weapons Convention Daniria requests the OPCW to provide assistance and protection against the threat of use of chemical weapons, and an investigation of alleged use.
After considering the information provided by Daniria, the OPCW approves the request. The Director-General authorizes the dispatch to Daniria of a team from the Technical Secretariat to assess the threat, and to coordinate assistance and protection should it be needed. The OPCW also mobilizes specialized teams from other States Parties to provide assistance and protection support for the Danirian Government and an investigation of alleged use.
On Wednesday morning, just as a sporting event was to begin at a stadium in Daniria, two vans exploded in the car park that released what appeared to be toxic chemicals. The prevailing winds carried the toxic vapor into a corner of the stadium, where within minutes pandemonium erupts. Spectators are exposed to the vapor and disabled, many of them with symptoms of concentrated exposure.
Units of the Danirian government authority and international teams coordinated by the OPCW arrive on the scene. They undertake detection activities, search and rescue, evacuation of casualties, and bomb detection and disposal. Casualties are rushed to mobile medical units for pre-triage, stabilization and treatment.
At the same time, evidence of suspected toxic chemicals is found in and around the sport stadium, where samples are collected and sent to a mobile laboratory for analysis.
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A more complete narrative of the Day 3 exercise will be found on the two videos HERE and HERE. (Click on the black space to play them)
The concluding installment of this report will be posted tomorrow (Saturday).
YOU KNOW THE HOUSE PARTY HAS GOTTEN out of hand when the homeowner has to ask the 9-1-1 dispatcher where the unconscious teenagers are located.
Boca Raton Police photo
Shlomo and Jeannie Rasabi have two teenage sons in Boca Raton, Florida, and the kids’ high school was having a Homecoming weekend of festivities. So the Rasabi’s decided to let the boys throw a party last Saturday night for about 150 of their closest friends in their 17,000 sq. ft. mansion.
Shlomo and Jeannie Rasabi
The Rasabi’s thought they had it all figured out. The invitations went out and the invitees each received a custom-made wrist band to keep out gate crashers and they hire three chaperone / security people to maintain order. And of course, there was to be no alcohol. And then the two loving parents went upstairs to their bedroom and sequestered themselves there to let the kids have their fun.
Boca Raton Police photo
But to no one’s surprise, except maybe the Rasabi’s, word had already gotten out several days before. After first getting blonked at another party in a nearby town, a few hundred drunken teenagers donned their counterfeit wrist bands that somebody had fixed up for them, then piled aboard four chartered buses that had been arranged to meet them at midnight. The mob arrived at the Rasabi’s around 12:15 am and within 15 minutes calls began coming in to 9-1-1 for sick and unconscious people around the house and in the yard.
“I didn’t even know all these kids were here; they all brought alcohol into the house,” Shlomo Rasabi said, according to the police report. “My wife and I planned a party for Homecoming … in which all the kids had a party at our house, [but] it was never supposed to get this big. I was in my room the whole time.” The police report agrees with the parents’ assessment that they had no idea that 500 teenagers were drinking, vomitting and passing out all over their property.
After the 4th call to 9-1-1, a dispatcher called the house and spoke to Mrs. Rasabi, asking her if she knew what was going on. “We don’t have anybody unconscious. Where are they?” she responded rather frantically.
Boca Raton Police photo
The Boca Raton police have assembled a combined recording of the 9-1-1 calls and made it public HERE.
According to the police report, officers found about 100 juveniles drinking outside. Five were vomiting and four teenage girls were unconscious on the front lawn. After they made contact with Shlomo and made him aware of what was happening, he immediately shut the party down.
The Rasabis were arrested on misdemeanor charges of open house party. Six teens were charged with possessing alcohol under the age of 21.
The Sun-Sentinel has the full STORY HERE.
The UK Daily Mail has photos of the interior of the house HERE.
IT SURVIVED THE “KICK TEST,” so they don’t need the bomb squad. Want to try animal control? Still another photo came across the editor’s desk without a caption and we don’t have any idea what these firefighters are discussing or considering.
Help us out and send us your suggestion of what this size-up conference is all about. As always, use the Comments section to send us your solution.
A MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN, MAN RECENTLY RAN in a charity event, the Run to Irish Fest for the benefit of the arthritis foundation. When he completed the course, he began experiencing some breathing difficulties and had to sit down. Two paramedics from the private ambulance firm that was providing first-aid service to the event arrived and provided some oxygen for him and evaluated him before deciding that he didn’t need any further assistance.
Adam Latiker (WITI-TV image)
This week Adam Latiker received a bill from the Bell Ambulance company in the amount of $243.35 for the basic care tended. It was itemized as $160 for the response, $77.77 for the cost of the oxygen administered and $5.58 for one pair of examination gloves.
Latiker is upset over having to pay for what he calls “a simple little service” and believes he shouldn’t have to pay it because it was all done “for charity.” He took his story to WITI-TV and they filed this video report:
Latiker does not say on camera who he thinks should pay for his medical treatment, but he says he isn’t going to.
So who do you think should pay for his medical care, because it certainly isn’t free? Latiker, the arthritis foundation, the ambulance company, the taxpayers, or Santa Claus?
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