Monday, October 22, 2007

SoCal Fires, Emergency Management, and planning...

Today in Southern California a series of wildfires either deliberately set, or caused by other "natural causes" (if, as one reporter proclaimed, a "downed power line" is a natural cause...)
 
(Very strong "Santa Ana" winds, a reverse weather phenomenom that causes adiabatically heated and dried air to be sent at hurricane speeds down canyons) are a huge contributor to the fires, and do cause power lines to fall as well!)
 
Republicans, such as Arnold and President Bush, are concerned about the people getting all that they need during the disaster.
 
"Emergency Management - Bring It On!"
 
(Sounds like socialism to me, like government roads, schools, MediCal, MediCare, Social Security, secure borders, etc.)
 
Once upon a time I wrote a disaster scenario to represent everything that could happen to a populace in one paragraph. 
 
It was part of a software demonstration from Cliffside Software, a company my brother and I started (and finished!).
 
I'll replicate it herewith, after you read the real life scenario as it appeared today!
 
Here are a series of sentences that sum it up...weird stuff happens in a disaster...
-----------------------------------------------
A 1,049-inmate jail in Orange County was evacuated because of heavy smoke. The prisoners were bused to other lockups.

In San Diego County, where at least four fires burned, more than 200,000 reverse 911 calls — calls from county officials to residents — alerted residents to evacuations, said County Supervisor Roberts.

About 10,000 of them ended up at Qualcomm Stadium, home to the NFL's Chargers, where thousands of people huddled in eerie silence during the day Monday, staring at muted TV news reports of the wildfires. A lone concession stand served coffee and doughnuts. Many gathered in the
parking lot with their pets, which were banned from the stadium.

"The flames were like 100 feet high and it moved up the hill in seconds. It was at the bottom, it was in the middle, and then it was at the top," said Steve Jarrett, who helped a friend evacuate his home in nearby Escondido.

Fire near the San Diego Wild Animal Park led authorities to move condors, a cheetah, snakes and other animals to the fire-resistant veterinary hospital on the grounds of the park. The large animals, such as elephants, rhinos and antelope, were left in irrigated enclosures.

Flames forced the evacuation of the San Diego community of Ramona, which has a population of about 36,000.

As flames, thick smoke and choking ash filled the air around San Diego County's Lake Hodges, Stan Smith ignored orders to evacuate and stayed behind to help rescue the horses of his neighbor Ken Morris.

 
"It's hard to leave all your belongings and take off, and the bad thing is you can't get back in once you leave," Smith said. "I heard the cops come by, and I just ducked," Morris said.
 
Besides, said Smith, "Lots of time the fire doesn't ever come. It's come really close before. I've seen it so bad you couldn't even hear yourself talk over the flames and ash blowing everywhere."
---------------------------------------
I'll wager Smith has seen his share of "ash blowing everywhere"!
 
Here's what I wrote (circa 1996).
 
PlanAHEAD remains the world's only generalized contingency exercise development tool and is used to script training sessions to allow decision makers to learn how to overcome all of this and more:
 
Mutual Aid Pacts were activated by the time the torrential rain started and the tornado had just about roped out when the school bus stalled over the railroad tracks right next to the gasoline tank farm and the children's cries drowned out the noise of the flash flood, which washed away the cemetary, sending caskets into the river, threatening the dam and not playing havoc with the computer systems like the electro-magnetic pulse from the nuclear explosion which put a crimp in the power to the city, and the computer data network was badly affected by the sun spots, while the civil disturbance went into its second week with the nursing home hostages being released just one at a time, and only if they help save the health care workers from their plane's wreckage, which is still smoldering at the recently crowded stadium (now a temporary morgue), and the fuel which hadn't already burned is pouring into the storm drains, barely affecting the President and First Lady who made a surprise visit, so almost nobody noticed the earthquake, except those EOC members still trapped in the grain silo with the virus wielding band of bio-hazard terrorists.
 
The media, with live TV feeds just outside the EOC, blames your organization.
 
Just had to share.
 
Good luck with the disaster, wherever you are!

If your parents, dislocated and distraught, are whining, here's another story...

This is from a friend of mine who is displaced due to the fires as well. 
 
Dear Michael,
 
We were evacuated yesterday from Lores Canyon and are presently staying in Newport Beach.  Our home is at risk and right in the line of the fire, based on what we can see on television.  We got out with a few pieces of clothing, our laptops, and about one precious item each--my mother's pearls, my son's baby blanket, my daughter's doll.  I have 3 children with me: Kevin, my 13 year old; Caitlin, my 11 year old, and Sarah, my colleague Tony Sowch's daughter, who is 10.  She was spending the night Saturday and by Sunday morning, the canyons had been closed, and us with NO electricity.  We only found out about the fires because the electricity came on for 10 minutes and someone reached us by landline, since our mobile phones do not work up there.  We came to Irvine to escape the fires, and then ended up at a friend's house that was evacuated last night, too.  Needless to say, it has been a terribly traumatic 24+ hours and I do not even know where we are going tomorrow.  We might need to take you up on your offer of a place to sleep, as we cannot stay forever in this hotel in Newport.
 
Love,
Lizzie
 
 
Wicked pix...

Hi, how's the fire?

Glad they are safe and away from the smoke (I hope).  I haven't left my condo and live in an apartment canyon, but the air seems awfully orange at the moment (from where I sit).
Yeah, the hose thingy is an classic TV photo op. 
Valient home-owner vs. Mother Nature...
She's only has 100 foot tall non-native, invasive and water-table-robbing-Eucalyptus that burn off near the ground (thanks to the unmanaged "engineered-to-burn" chapparel), and become airborne when their leaves catch the fire generated plus Santa Ana wind turning into flaming arrows in the neighborhood.  
Keep watching TV, you'll see some very likely!
Homeowner only has that little hose. 
oh well...My uncle's house went down to the ground in a fire in 1963 I think - the LA Brentwood Fire, right up a canyon.  His car was melted in the driveway and the chimney was still standing.  They managed to salvage the silver service, it was melted into a glob, so they stuck it on a board and called it art.
Across the street, the house was untouched, except for a 2 inch burn hole about 6 foot up on one of the garage doors!

I'll go on the roof and take a peek later.  We're in the middle of the city, if we get evacuated there is no where to go!
Good Luck, stay cool and don't be outside playing tennis or jogging...I know WAY too much about what is on that chapparel, I used to cruise through it for hours and hours as an archaeologist.
The smoke from a natural chapparel fire is plenty toxic.
The smoke from a current chapperel fire is doubly or trebly so, thanks to the smog that has been deposited upon the vegetation.  Think of years of heavy soot hydrocarbons now coating the already waxy leaves of chapparel.  They can tolerate that stuff great!  But now, it is burning, so it is like YEARS of car exhaust all in one week...in your lungs.
Wonder why I don't have kids?  I'd make a great dad...lol.
Enjoy your sister's kid(s) and don't have any, trust me, they, (your non-kids) will thank you!
www.vhemt.org  So, live long and die off! 
On that note, here's a story for your parents!
When I was with IBM Rochester, (in Minnesota - 1983!) my parents came down from Minneapolis to visit (about 80 miles).  They returned home just in front of a huge storm, and came back to our house 15 minutes later.
We ended up in a downstairs (basement split level, but up against the soil wall) bathroom as the tornadoes and hail and sleet and snow and torrential rain and shit went through town.
You can bet that made Martha's day!
On 10/22/07, Ryan <r@reeee.com> wrote:
It was a mandatory evacuation.  She is here too.  He was on the roof earlier LOL.  You called that!

-----Original Message-----
From: "Michael (Frish) Frishberg" <frish@gl.com>
To: "Ryan <r@reeee.com>
Sent: 10/22/07 2:47 PM
Subject: Re: Hi, how's the weather

Wholly shit batman.

What, did he dump your mother somewhere?

He's not on the roof with his hose?  Hmmm


>
> Hey dads here..he just got mandatory evacuated. Its bad!
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Michael (Frish) Frishberg" <frishberg@gmail.com>
> To: "To: "Ryan < r@reeee.com>
  
 Subject: Hi, how's the weather
>
> I see Arnold on the TV sniffing smoke in San Diego...
>
> Are you downwind, upwind or winding down?!
>
> --
> Cheers,
>
> Frish