[CoARES-D10] The Hazards Of Winter (From the ARES-RACES Reflector)

[Joshua Heidbrink]

I apologize about my last e-mail that didn't let my forward past the
server, so this one should make it.  73

Here is a rather sobering, first-hand account of recent events
surrounding
 the ice storm in the Kansas City area just over a week ago.  Those of
us
 who live in the cold weather areas would do well to heed the hard
lessons
 learned by some and not make the same mistakes should an event like
this occur in your area. There are no more valuable lessons than those
learned through experience.

 Thanks to Mike Bellinger, K0UAA ARES-EC for Jackson County, MO.,
for passing along his observations regarding the storm and its
aftermath.

Matt Parker, N7TOD
Nevada Dist-1 DEC
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Feel free to ask questions about any of this information. I may or may
not have more details to provide. The thing most people don't realize is

the danger involved with a storm like we had. Early on in the develop-
ment of this storm, on Wednesday morning, the NWS distributed a
strongly worded warning. It was something to the effect that if you
chose to leave the safety of your residence, you were putting your life
in danger. That I guess is relative, since there were many who stayed
at home during the storm and thereafter were in no less danger. I will
become evident as I describe what happens.

The first thing that began occurring on Wednesday is that icing was
occurring before rush hour. Visibility though incompletely cleared
windows was a problem. Accidents occurred. Police cars were
involved in accidents getting to accidents. Ambulances couldn't get
to accident scenes because of stopped traffic. Travel on road
shoulders was worst of all. For the most part though, streets, roads,
bridges and overpasses had been well treated by road crews ahead
of time.

Then branches and the ice they supported began falling. Limbs fell
on individual electrical services. Transformers blew and high voltage
power lines arced. I was outside spreading deicer at about this time.
Almost continuously, in some direction, I could see either blue, red
or green flashes reflected off the low clouds as some part of the
electrical system failed. Sometimes the events were close enough
to hear the buzz of arcing high voltage lines or the sharp concussion
of an overloaded transformer exploding. What mostly I heard though
were falling limbs. About every minute a limb would fall somewhere
in the neighborhood. This went on well into the next morning. Some-
times you could tell if a limb hit something, usually a house or a car.

Probably the most help hams could have been initially was to report
streets closed by debris. There were lots of those. If public safety
had that information they could route ambulances and fire appartatus
around blockages. However, at that time, I don't know if officials could

have handled that information had they had it. 911 dispatchers were
getting swamped. On one hand you had adults and kids calling 911
asking about family who had not yet arrived home from work. On the
other you had some number of people calling 911 for every electrical
flash they saw or every electrical failure they heard. It was a scary
situation for sure. Then there were those who called 911 to report
their power was interruptions rather than first calling the power
company.

I said the most initial ham help would probably be to report closed
streets. This is not a task I want to dispatch mobiles at night to do.
I would not agree to let any ham do that unless he had experience
doing if before with the full benefit of daylight. Otherwise, they might

agree to the duty without knowing what could befall them. It is just
too risky. I saw and read of all manner of things falling on cars. I
saw cars whose windows were cracked and then there were those
that just had empty window frames. There were folks that were
electrocuted when a power line energized their car as they were
exiting the vehicle. There were other vehicles, including a school
bus, that became entangled in falling power lines. There were
folks that were knocked out cold from falling ice. I know a person
that happened to. In the first day or so there were more than 90
persons treated in hospitals for either things falling on their bodies
or their bodies falling on or against something. I would recommend
against having your ARES folks practice reporting street closures
at night for your exercise, lest they think it is OK and safe to do. It
is not.

That brings up the next topic -- emergency rooms closed to
ambulances. There were cases where emergency rooms had to
divert ambulances due to  their patient load. Very few ERs were
always available, most were unavailable for at least a few hours
and there were some ERs who were unavailable for more than 24
hours at a time.

Another hazard was the gas-powered generator set. We don't realize
from seeing generators, operating out in the open at Field Day, how
dangerous they can be. Citizens who have no experience with them,
and therefore have no business operating one, will attempt something
dangerous with them. They have no idea how much CO a single
cylinder,10 HP motor can produce. People who wouldn't think of
leaving their car to idle in an open garage, will operate a generator in

a closed garage. That is what killed one couple here. People will
operate generators inside the house or in the basement because they
don't have cords of sufficient length and gauge to place the unit
outside.
Some who do place units outside will place them by leaky basement
windows that allows the CO penetration. Others use a slightly open
basement window to pass power cords though, but position the
generator too close to the window. In the first day or so in the metro
we had 30 CO cases with 3 fatalities.

We had even more fatalities from fire. During the height of the ice
 storm the Kansas City, MO FD had as many as six working fires at
once. The fire hazard can be categorized in three different phases. The
first phase is fires and emergencies caused by things falling: falling
limbs, falling ice, falling power lines. Some of the most dangerous
fires
were caused when the electrical service was literally torn away from
the house which in some cases started fires in the walls near where
the power attachment.

The next phase would be fires caused when people resorted to
alternative means of heating and lighting. Some fires resulted from use
of kerosene and propane heaters. Those heating devices also
accounted for some of the CO cases. Then there were fires that
started due to imprudent handling of fuels.

Storing or spilling fuel near a working gas water heater would be an
example of this folly. Some fires resulted from accidents using candles
and matches.

There were a number of what I call friendly fire accidents. There was
one case where a person had a fire in the fireplace and was using
some wood felled by the storm. Without the proper fireplace screening
in place, the popping of the fresh wood sent embers to the carpet.
There were other cases where a roaring fireplace fire sent embers to
the shake shingle roof on their own or a neighboring house. One
person had a chimney and structure fire when he started a fire in a
fireplace he had never used before. He found out there was wooden
lath in his chimney that ignited. The cases in this group accounted
for the greatest loss of life locally.

The final phase of fire danger occurs when electrical power is restored
to a neighborhood. In most of these cases there was unsuspected
electrical damage within the house. When power was restored, a fire
started. One such fire occurred about two miles south of me. Fifteen
fire companies were called to that one, involving 80 or so fire
personnel.
In one double fatality case, power had been restored to a house hours
earlier, but an electric space heater was still being used in a front
room
of the house when it set a fire. This group had the second highest
fatalities.

You might be wondering, with the power being out for some for up to ten
days, if there were any serious cases of hypothermia. There was one
notable case, but I hadn't heard too many others. The case I did hear
the
details about involved an older man who when out for a walk and got
trapped
beneath a fallen limb. He was not discovered until he had developed a
serious case of hypothermia. The majority of the hypothermia cases
involved the older and infirm.

Mike Bellinger, K0UAA
ARES-EC for Jackson County, MO.