Artful Dodger::::::::::::::
The morning briefing suggests we are going to be missed by a wide margin and likely Dean is heading for the dark heart of Mexico..... Ihave seen too many hurricanes turn due north after hitting the Yucatan though.. the high forehead types are saying something about a high stuck over Texas holding it down there.. yada yada yada.... Anyway they are using the word Demobilization here (we have one box to pack and outa here... ).. I never even got a phone, laptop or new badge.
This is a pretty big show though.. this morning driving in I saw a pad of an old building that had something under 200 ambulances parked door to door facing east. They had 600 school busses setting on a building pad half a mile over for deployment for evacuation and 6 fixed wing aircraft (great big C-130s) and another 6 helicopters sitting on the Air force base apron awaiting 24 hour operations.. these guys were seriously ready for the shit to hit the fan. They were ready for something in excess of 200,000 evacuees to hit the city of San Antonio.
The funny part about this is .... this is a State operation.. we are here as guests.. literally sitting on our hands.. (FEMA is used to throwing its weight around .. when we deploy we are the boss for the most part and our managers and ops people are not very well practiced in being observers and resources for questions.. a learning experience for our group.. kinda fun to see). My job would have been to prepare the place for a bigger FEMA presence in case the disaster got declared and we grew to our normal FEMA size... so I have had a badge and access to every part of this preparation and had not a single dedicated task in the whole thing. What a fun trip.
Now comes our De-Mobilization plan... (pack the one FEMA phone, put my laptop back in the bag, do expenses, do my time sheet and go home.... :-D) we can leave a dark room 20 minutes after we get the word this time.. usually it takes a week to break down an installation. I look forward to going home although it is possible they will ask me to go back to region for some reason. I am not wild about cooling my heels in Denton.. saw all i need to see of that operation last Friday afternoon.
More as it becomes clear to me.
This is a pretty big show though.. this morning driving in I saw a pad of an old building that had something under 200 ambulances parked door to door facing east. They had 600 school busses setting on a building pad half a mile over for deployment for evacuation and 6 fixed wing aircraft (great big C-130s) and another 6 helicopters sitting on the Air force base apron awaiting 24 hour operations.. these guys were seriously ready for the shit to hit the fan. They were ready for something in excess of 200,000 evacuees to hit the city of San Antonio.
The funny part about this is .... this is a State operation.. we are here as guests.. literally sitting on our hands.. (FEMA is used to throwing its weight around .. when we deploy we are the boss for the most part and our managers and ops people are not very well practiced in being observers and resources for questions.. a learning experience for our group.. kinda fun to see). My job would have been to prepare the place for a bigger FEMA presence in case the disaster got declared and we grew to our normal FEMA size... so I have had a badge and access to every part of this preparation and had not a single dedicated task in the whole thing. What a fun trip.
Now comes our De-Mobilization plan... (pack the one FEMA phone, put my laptop back in the bag, do expenses, do my time sheet and go home.... :-D) we can leave a dark room 20 minutes after we get the word this time.. usually it takes a week to break down an installation. I look forward to going home although it is possible they will ask me to go back to region for some reason. I am not wild about cooling my heels in Denton.. saw all i need to see of that operation last Friday afternoon.
More as it becomes clear to me.
posted by Steve Morse- Adventures in Disasters at 6:34 AM
2 Comments:
Well--there is always a possibility for a flood disaster in Oklahoma--Kingfisher has had a number of deaths and Uncle Bill Holl had 9" of rain in a few hours-(we had well over 5)--floated his cellar up and out even though he had a 500# rock on top of it. Bill Higdon says they were without elec. til 2 yesterday and a auto missing with 2 teenagers as one of the main streets was well under water out by where the old swimming pool used to be. There is a lot of damage and could be more rain from Dean--take care out there in the wilds--I am familiar with the old airport where you are at present.
If they make you go wait it out in Denton and you aren't super busy yet Doug and I oculd drive down on a Saturday and visit you for lunch.
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