[NevadaARES] [Fwd: The hazards]

[Matthew Parker]

(Message BCC'd to several emergency management and response partners)

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 our area.

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




>-------- Original Message --------
>Subject: The hazards
>Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2002 16:07:06 EST
>
>
>Matt:
>
>     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 development 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. Sometimes 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 wer
>e 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 us
>e 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 i
>mprudent 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 electrica
>l
>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
>
>

Matthew B. Parker, N7TOD
Chairman, Northern Nevada Amateur Radio Services
http://www.qsl.net/nnars
ARES District Emergency Coordinator - Nevada Area 1 

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