[quote=petarded;270238]well i just ripped my neighbor a new one for calling the FD because a tree fell and broke his window, knocking down wires that were already turned off because another tree took out the street earlier in the afternoon... thus no hazard, so why waste our time????
fckn retard[/quote
Not the best move, Retarded. Do you think all civilians can make an assement that any particulal wires are dead.If we are professionals and citizens think they need our help we should respond without smart ass comments.
I've gone to more than one 10 where the owner said that he smelled smoke for awhile but he didn't think it was anything.
Also who hasn't been to a cardiac call where the person said that he didn't call earlier because he thought it was only heartburn.
Better safe than sorry!
More than ever, the fire service needs good public relations.
I would also like to compliment all the dispatchers who worked this storm for a job well done during a real busy time. I would like to send a special thanks to all my guys down in Long Beach who did a great job during the storm and more importantly during our power failure in the office. Without having to ask each one of you jumped in and did what was asked of you without question. Because of your actions we got back online in a matter of minutes so we could continue to serve the public.
Living out of state, I was not involved with the storm related activity but judging from the posts it was an extraordinary effort by our volunteer service. The accolades we are bestowing on each other as well as Firecom and the individual department dispatchers is well deserved, BUT, how about the politicians, or perhaps the media. Are they aware of the great job you guys did? How about the guy that advertises at the top of the page? Is there anybody besides ourselves that knows that we gave of our time away from our families, basically in the same neighborhoods that we responded to, to help them? Perhaps, an editorial bragging of our efforts in the local weekly paper, would help to let the citizens know that we were there for them. Sorry for the long rant, but I just want to see you guys and gals get the reconition you deserve.
I just asked the dispatcher for our numbers for the EOC committee they are still trying to input all the data for run numbers but he estimates close to 600 alarms for the weekend. We ran every apparatus in the department for 12 hours straight never getting back to the firehouse once 1100-2300 before we backed in got a fresh crew and overnight handled another 50 or so calls 3 pd's partally collapsed due to fallen trees Like to commend the department for an outstanding job under a shit load of calls
Grumpy: no need to make excuses as far as any of us are concerned. To the contrary, wish we up here on the quiet north shore could have done something to help.
Not to be critical, as I know how overwhelming the call volume was for some departments and FireCom (especially after 911 went down), but maybe the Departments with significantly lower storm activity could have been used for MA, rather than the surrounding Departments, which were faced with the same conditions.
Some of us would of been more then happy to go down to Long Beach, but we were not aware of the situation. Is there an EOC in Nassau? I am pretty sure there is. Was it activated? What is the procedure for when a department is overwhelmed? You would think in a perfect world someone would say hmm..looks like the south shore is catching hell, maybe we should pull some resources. With 71 departments, how does that happen? I think there is nothing worse then to find out after the fact someone needed a hand and you could of done something but were blind to the fact. I really think this county needs to stop acting as indivduals and put a truly incident management plan into effect.
okay, well i'm going to say it. if it's feasible to bring in resources from the other end of the county in the middle of a major storm or apocalyptic event and are certain that it won't soon affect that unaffected part of the county, then go ahead. unless that determination can be made though, how can you possibly send units from an area when you could be the next one in the bullseye? this isn't a terrorist attack, it's a weather system moving northward across the whole area. there was no way to tell that port washington, roslyn and manhasset-lakeville weren't about to get crushed with calls, which on any given day can happen in those districts.
in a situation like this, i would have much rather been out being a chief, getting soaked and running around on calls all day, than sitting in a chair for about 10 hours straight dispatching hundreds of calls and answering many hundreds more with no break, no getting up to use a bathroom, no getting up for food, no getting up for water, etc.
sometimes every once in a very rare while, we have to put on our cape and play superhero. i'm not harping on the past or poking at who has done it, because i even heard somebody raise the "mutual aid" possibility on the radio the other day from my department (thankfully, we didn't request it), i don't think it's fair asking anybody for help during a time like this, unless you have a signal 10 and i mean a legit signal 10.
anybody can come back and feel free to make a comment of how i'm not thinking outside the box or i'm not proactive and try to give some legit-sounding reason why i'm wrong, but the fact is, sometimes we have to put on our big boy pants and get it done. i dunno, that's how i roll...
well i just ripped my neighbor a new one for calling the FD because a tree fell and broke his window, knocking down wires that were already turned off because another tree took out the street earlier in the afternoon... thus no hazard, so why waste our time????
fckn retard[/quote
Not the best move, Retarded. Do you think all civilians can make an assement that any particulal wires are dead.If we are professionals and citizens think they need our help we should respond without smart ass comments.
I've gone to more than one 10 where the owner said that he smelled smoke for awhile but he didn't think it was anything.
Also who hasn't been to a cardiac call where the person said that he didn't call earlier because he thought it was only heartburn.
Better safe than sorry!
More than ever, the fire service needs good public relations.
MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) - Nassau County officials are meeting to analyze why the county's 911 system became overloaded during the weekend Nor'easter.
County Executive Edward Mangano has ordered an immediate review.
During the height of the storm, Mangano says some of the estimated 10,000 Nassau County 911 calls were transferred. They landed in emergency centers in nearby Suffolk County - or as far away as Albany. Typically, the system gets about 2,200 calls a day.
Mangano says officials "cannot let another day pass by without addressing this situation."
He was expected to meet with emergency management officials on Monday to determine why the system was swamped.
New York City experienced the second-highest volume of 911 calls ever in a 24-hour period - 65,000 between 11 p.m. Friday and 11 p.m. Saturday.
I think a large majority of the issues reguarding this storm have to do with staffing.....
...When an "event", whatever it may be, presents itself, it is imperative for "management" to make a "command decision".... "more hands on deck".... worry about the bill for OT later when the shit blows over....
...The 2nd part of this issue lies with the "lack of common sense"- on the part of civilians calling an emergency number when there's already a FD/PD/EMS/LIPA etc unit present. "There's a cop car there, but the wire is burning" or my favorite- "I think they need more fire trucks there".....
...And it also goes back to "us".... wires, transformers, etc--- write em down on a sheet of paper and call LIPA when things calm down. Instead, 15 depts are giving wires at the same time on the same frequency as a unit is stating an "urgent" for a member down....
Use your head- LIPA's ETA @ 2000 hrs on 3/13 for wires was for 3/17. Not 4 hrs, 4 DAYS. Their not coming. Mitigate the situation to the best of your ability. Dont clog the airwaves with nonsense. Your brothers life may depend on it.
MFD your wright the over load is lack of common sense and misuse of the system. I worked saturday night and answered numerous calls from the public asking "why is the power out?, What are you doing about?When will the power come back on? Will the library be open tomorrow? LIPA all I can is you suck! NOT answering your phone for police/fire. And to John Public 911 is for emergencys only
LIPA all I can is you suck! NOT answering your phone for police/fire. And to John Public 911 is for emergencys only
I think you might want to give the operators at National Grid a break on this one. Remember it was a Saturday which is there lowest staffing day in the call center and they were receiving a call volume as large as the emergency services if not greater. My guess is for each line down that effected 3 houses each one of them was calling on top of the fd/pd for the same thing. I am sure they were caught as off guard as everyone else and it took time for the off duty staff to get to work with all the wires and trees down.
our new county executive needs to find out what our County OEM director has been doing for not only this storm but the last two MAJOR snow storms. As far as the 6th Batt. knows the OEM never activated, we never received a fax, memo anything. This county as a whole needs to stop(not picking on any single department) being a re-active government instead of being the progressive pro-active one we are all capable of being!!! My dept. had 52 runs during the height of the storm on saturday and we are sure to have increased call volume over the next several days as over 600 homes are still without power. No warnings of flood tides just about prevented us from responding into our harbor area for emergencies. etc.. This was a borderline cat.1 hurricane and that was what the OEM was originally intended for. Albeit the Chief can activate his/her Batt. EOC the county should have once again PRO ACTIVE and opened theirs. This I am sure would have helped to ease the burden of Firecom/911 requests by reducing the number of dispatch agencies making calls for services (9e.o.c's instead of 20 different dispatch offices) Our dispatch should be commended(650) for there hard work as well as all who "weathered the storm " as it were!!. Mentioned earlier was shifting some calls to 650, they were as overburdoned as firecom was. Hope all of the brothers and sisters are well and kudos to all for a job well done.
Technically I don't believe it could have never been classfied as a hurricane. To be a hurricane it has to have a specific path.
"A tropical storm begins to brew over the ocean. As it makes contact with warm ocean waters — if the temperature of the water is above 26.5 degrees Celcius (80 Fahrenheit) — the storm's heat and energy intensify. Winds rotate counterclockwise around a calm center (the "eye"). When the sustained speed of the winds reaches 74 mi (119 km) per hour, the storm is officially classified as a hurricane. (The term applies to storms which occur over the N Atlantic Ocean, the NE Pacific Ocean east of the dateline, or the S Pacific Ocean."
I'm no weatherman but I don't believe this storm had the right track or originate in the right place. Speed of the wind is not what gives the storm it classafication.
...in a situation like this, i would have much rather been out being a chief, getting soaked and running around on calls all day, than sitting in a chair for about 10 hours straight dispatching hundreds of calls and answering many hundreds more with no break, no getting up to use a bathroom, no getting up for food, no getting up for water, etc.
I think you might want to give the operators at National Grid a break on this one. Remember it was a Saturday which is there lowest staffing day in the call center and they were receiving a call volume as large as the emergency services if not greater. My guess is for each line down that effected 3 houses each one of them was calling on top of the fd/pd for the same thing. I am sure they were caught as off guard as everyone else and it took time for the off duty staff to get to work with all the wires and trees down.
i called lipa twice between 7 and 11pm each time i had a list of 10 or so outges/downed wires. i got through with no problem.
i think they deserve as much a tip o the helmet as do our guys in da bunker and those who were manning their own dept's base stations.
bgc3128... i was working in hewlett saturday night and there were copies of a fax from oem plastered all over the firehouse. stating that there was a coastal storm for friday saturday and sunday with the potential of high winds heavy rain astronomically high tides etc. and that oem was monitoring the storm.
as far as to when each batt's oem offices went into operation and who made that call i don't know. but the 3rd batt's was manned.
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