helicopper

Rather than have 75 posts for each of the school districts in our area (right there is a reason for consolidation but I digress), please use the following links to determine what schools will be open or closed tomorrow. http://www.nbcnewyork.com/weather/school-closings/ http://www.whud.com/stormcenter/ http://www.news12.com/articleDetail.jsp?articleId=244420 http://www.wfasstormcenter.net/ These sites will be updating the closures/delays/early dismissals as they occur. Thank you and stay safe!

Interesting question so I did a little research... A few storms have hit us especially hard including Floyd, Irene, the unnamed storm of 1938, Donna, and the Nor'Easter in 1992. The tracks of Irene and Floyd were very different from Sandy; they both moved up the coast where Sandy appears to be taking a track more like the 1938 storm (which was about category 5) for a direct hit on the DelMarVa Peninsula. Definitely not good news for them but we're still well within the tropical storm wind cone and will also receive heavy rain and wind. (Irene is the other track along the coast with Floyd and Donna, the tag got cut off.) Intensity wise, Irene hit the metro area as a hurricane before weakening as it moved inland. See the track here: http://www.nhc.noaa....loop_5NLW.shtml Irene was a big storm too. The satellite image shows Irene to be almost one third of the size of the U.S. east coast. The distance from Augusta, Maine to Miami, Florida is 1662.55 miles. Hurricane Irene's tropical storm force winds extended 255 miles from the center making Irene 510 miles in diameter, almost one-third the size of the U.S. Hurricane-force winds extend 70 miles from the center, or 140 miles in diameter. Sandy is also really big, and it’s getting bigger. Tropical storm force winds now reach 450 miles out from the center, so at its forward speed of 9 mph, places could experience tropical storm conditions almost 48 hours prior to the arrival of the center. That's a LOT of rain and wind for 2-3 days. Floyd hit the Carolinas as a strong type 2 hurricane and eventually reached us as a tropical storm. The issue with Floyd was it's size, it was HUGE - much bigger than Andrew, the hurricane that decimated south Florida. Near its eye, Floyd's winds were 130 miles per hour, earning it a Category 3 rating from meteorologists and it was almost twice the size of typical Atlantic hurricanes, Floyd was some 580 miles across and packed tropical storm-force winds (40 to 73 mph) or greater across that entire span. The big thing that I picked up from all this research; there are so many variables it is hard to really "compare" storms. Water temperature, wind speed, other frontal activity, location, speed, size, lunar cycle, etc. all make it very hard to say one is more or less devastating than another. Hurricane Sandy is a very large storm and no matter where exactly it hits we're going to feel its punch. Stay safe! More on Floyd for those with nothing else to do today - http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/1999floyd.html

To call it hype at this point is premature. There's still a lot of latitude in the forecast models and the error range has been 175 NM. That's a huge range! Regardless, even if the storm hits the Delmarva Peninsula, we will be right in the path of the rotation of the storm and during a full moon. People I'm talking to are likening this storm to the nor'Easter of 1992 that hammered our region; this storm could be every bit of that and then some. 1-2 inches or rain causes flooding and this has the potential to bring twice that. Don't be too quick to blow this off.

The track is going to change every 6 hours with every update from the forecasters and models. Then every meterologist will add their interpretation to impress their viewers so this thread will be as long as the Stamford merger thread if we post every update. I figure we will either get rain or we won't. :-)

Rest in peace.

Yes, they canceled the game. What's your point? There was a volatile situation with the potential for even more problems and injuries and they mitigated it by canceling the game. This is not the first time nor will it be the last time that high school sports is impacted by the actions of some troublemakers. Hopefully they allow the game to be played at a later date with no fans or fanfare at a neutral site. Just the players, coaches, and refs so the game can be played by those who were not involved and enjoy their sport. This has been done before and will probably continue to be done when problems like this arise.

http://www.yorkdispa...es-southeast-pa RIP Doug, you will be missed by us all!

Talk about the end of an era. Best of luck in retirement, you've earned it! Congratulations and good luck to Scott!

I thought 911 calls in Yonkers that required EMD got transferred to Empress for it?

Amber alerts can (and I believe this is an example) be issued immediately upon receipt of information regarding a child abduction, kidnapping or even custodial interference. There are standards but they are designed to promote early activation of the system to get the child home and are not anything like the requirements for a warrant or anything else that takes time, detail, and evidence. Once it was determined that this was not a credible report, the alert was canceled.

It's dated 2009. Are you certain it hasn't been revised, rescinded, or superseded since then? I would be very careful relying on a copy of a 3 1/2 year old document.

They're almost all made specifically (though not exclusively) for aircraft. You could theoretically get one of these radios and install it in a car but you'd need a converter to 28V since aircraft systems are 28V not 12V. Cost is also a concern because these radios are probably 10x more expensive than traditional land mobile radios. If you've got unlimited funds and a way of upping the voltage, go for it. Wulfsberg and Technisonic are probably the most popular brands out there right now and there are many different models. NAT also used to be a big part of the market share but I think they were bought out by Cobham.

Varies widely from operator to operator and aircraft to aircraft. Most of the commercial operators have (or at least used to have) at least one multi-band programmable radio so they could input frequencies for LZ coordination on the fly (pun intended).

Can you provide a link to the article you reference or quote the line in question?

It's probably a very crude figure derived by dividing the budget by the number of recruits. It doesn't mean that the actual cost is really only $3000 per recruit.

What's the salary and cost of benefits for a recruit while in the academy? I bet that's where they get part of the number. I agree that for the FD it is pretty hard to say that the NYPD trained him. But, if they're not fighting it...

The FAA defined the there designations of "Alert". That's the national standard and defined in Federal Aviation Regulations. From the regs: Westchester just tried to quantify it since there's no way to know from an "Alert 3" response if there is an Airbus with 155 people coming in or a Cessna with 2. It may seem complicated but it is designed to give responders more information.

Funeral details are as follows: A wake will take place on Wed Aug 1st between 3pm and 7pm at Beechers Funeral Home which is located at 418 Bedford Rd, Pleasantville, NY. The funeral mass will be Thursday Aug 2nd at St Michael's Church which is located at W 100th st, and Amsterdam Ave, NY NY at 11am. Thank you to the members keeping us updated with information on this tragedy.

Three steps! All it would take is three steps and we'd be on the way to improved preparedness. 1. It takes the development of a plan. 2. It requires training on the plan - not just the "planning committee", not just the "Chief" but all the folks that will be at the "big one". 3. Then it absolutely requires exercising the plan and the responders. Not just one "big Saturday" with lots of fanfare and theatrics but frequently so that you're raising the capability of the lowest common denominator or the weakest link in the chain (whichever cliche suits you). This probably means frequent exercises for lots of different people. Years ago the PSCIM (Public Safety Critical Incident Management Course) did exercise responders from different disciplines in a meaningful way. That go pushed to the back burner and now classroom ICS training has replaced it. The ICS classroom training is essential but not at the expense of functional training! Some say they're retooling the PSCIM course but if it includes a NIMS module and an NRF module we lost the war (now I digress). In recent threads we've identified at least four or five different MCI scenarios - not just a mass shooting - for which we, as a whole, are inadequately prepared. What are we doing about that? Now shall we all hold our breath for this to happen?

The utility mutual aid system is far superior to what we deal with in the emergency services. For major emergencies, the utilities are able to mobilize large numbers of crews and materials and move them where they're needed quickly from all over the country. These pictured crews may not be part of a mutual aid assignment due to the labor issues at Con Ed but in years past similar contingents could be seen staged at DES and Playland as well as other locations.

First off, having listened to the tapes, there was very little screaming. Agitation and frustration perhaps, but the officers of the Aurora PD were incredibly professional given what they were confronted with. Their dispatcher deserves an award, a raise, and a vacation, too. I don't know what they do in dispatch training out west as this is not the first time I've heard a remarkable dispatcher during a catastrophic incident. This is not a slight on our dispatchers here in the east, but there seems to be a consistency out west that is lacking here. On to the subject of ICS.... were there even established branch directors as you describe or are you speculating on the possible organization? In your model who was the IC? A formal structure seemed to evolve fairly quickly in each traditional discipline but how well integrated it was remains to be seen. FD/EMS talked about all kinds of division and group positions but how many frontline resources were pulled out of service to fill those roles further exacerbating the resource shortage? Did the PD, FD, and EMS management form a single command post or were they all working in different locations playing the game of telephone to get messages out? The first minutes of any critical incident are where ICS can be most valuable and is most often overlooked because you can claim the chaos defense when asked why things weren't done. If we don't properly implement ICS on the routine day to day stuff and drill/exercise on the bigger, less frequent stuff we're planning to fail. We don't need to assign "branch directors" but we do need to identify and communicate the location of the command post, who is in charge, where the staging area is and what resources are needed. We then need to establish objectives and start assigning resources to do that. All management 101 and all part of the ICS process. Big charts and fancy titles can be added as the brass gets there and needs to feel important or empowered. Define "under control" or "safe" in a situation like that? One of the big problems that faced responders was the geographical size of the scene. This wasn't a single room or house with a person shot or otherwise assaulted inside. This was a movie theater complex at a suburban shopping mall. I'm a cop at one entrance on one side of the building with multiple people shot, no direct threat to me or anyone else, and I'm calling for an ambulance. Is that under control? Should EMS respond? I'm going to bet that just the way active shooter protocols evolved from Columbine, so will improvements in the EMS integration into a tactical response at a large-scale incident. If you're waiting for an "all-clear" you may be waiting for a while while some areas of the scene are safe and readily accessible. There is also going to be some risk to everyone because we probably won't know with any certainty if all the suspects are dealt with or hazards neutralized. Lots of good points here. Training and exercise absolutely should be integrated (wouldn't that be nice?) and frequently test the credible worst case scenario. Unfortunately, we don't like to do that because we're not well prepared for the day to day stuff let alone the big one. Just as Fire and EMS need to be included in the coordinated response, Fire and EMS need to recognize and embrace that there is risk inherent to the job and that risk must be accepted and managed. This doesn't mean take chances or become a dead hero but how can anyone possibly know when a scene like this one is really "safe"? Hours probably went by before anyone would say with any degree of accuracy and certainty that the scene in Aurora was safe because it probably took hours to search every theater and every room and all the vehicles, etc.etc.etc. Scenarios like this one (not necessarily this big) need to be played out on white boards and tabletops and discussions had until we all improve our responses to them. This is not Monday morning quarterbacking but rather how we will improve in our fields.

Funny how the company will let the workers back in when there are nasty weather predictions but last week they were telling them that they were losing their benefits next week once they've been out of work for one month. Where has the Governor been for the past month? Horrible situation for the displaced workers and customers waiting for services.

Virtually every law enforcement involved motor vehicle accident is thoroughly investigated (certainly one resulting in personal injury will be) so I'm not sure what the big deal is with the article. Really nothing more than a poorly written IA if you ask me. Glad the trooper is OK!

Date: 07-22-12 Time: approximately 2350 Location: Long Island Sound at Stamford Harbor Frequency: Stamford Fire, Stamford Police, Marine 16, Marine 22A Units Operating: Stamford Fire Rescue Stamford PD Stamford EMS Greenwich Fire Oyster Bay Marine Unit US Coast Guard Rescue Helicopter 6042 (Jayhawk based out of Cape Cod) Westchester County PD Aviation CT SP Aviation Weather Conditions: clear Description Of Incident: Vessel struck rocks and overturned. Four people rescued by marine units and dive teams; two were still under the capsized vessel and had to be extricated. One person still unaccounted for. Injured parties transported to shore to EMS. Marine units and air assets conducting search. US Coast Guard aviation relieved by Westchester County PD aviation. Search suspended temporarily due to thunderstorm. CT SP aviation enroute to resume search at 0630. Reporters: helicopper, et al

Huh??? What this has to do with the shooting inside a movie theater escapes me!!!