efermann

Too bad he didn't speak in front of the education department as well. Hopefully his testimony is passed on. As a high school teacher, I can't tell you how happy I am to hear someone say this. Those have been my thought for far too long. There are some students in my classes who should definitely pursue a path other than college. I don't think society (or their parents) realize how important other career paths are and that they shouldn't be seen as consolation prizes. Keeping students who would truly benefit from a learning environment other than a classroom in a desk for four years helps no one - the student, society, etc. High schools used to offer classes like "shop". While those classes weren't meant to teach someone everything there was to know about carpentry, etc, at least students would be exposed to those essential skilled labor fields. If the class served to interest the student, they had an idea that there was something out there for them to study. I remember coming home with all sorts of stuff I made out of wood, metal, etc. I can't say I was great at it, but at least those classes were offered. And I knew how to use most of the tools in the classes already from when I helped my dad rebuild the porch, work on the car, etc. It's rare to find a school that offers classes like than anymore. There are the BOCES programs for students around Westchester (and other parts of NYS), but enrollment is often limited. I've been reading educational literature lately in which there is a push for "college or career readiness". I've yet to see that happen, but it would be great if it ever did.

I'd like to add to what my Chief said about the operation. Yes, it went well. From my perspective, the pace of the operations seemed a bit slower and more deliberate than normal and just about every interior action before and after the fire was extinguished was accompanied by a corrections officer.

I agree JBE. As a father, this actually makes my stomach churn in a real bad way. God bless those kids.

You are correct. And not to argue, but my point in that reference was that an evacuation (in the case of a tsunami, hurricane, earthquake, etc) would take much longer and therefore need a tremendous amount of resources to accomplish. Some natural disasters give a bit more warning than others, and many factors (access to cars) about the populations involved need to be considered when planning. The warning time for the tsunami in Japan would have been somewhere in the order an hour for some of the more distant locations. 15 - 20 minutes for the locations closer to the earthquake epicenter. A nearly impossible task to evacuate in those circumstances.

In one of my wife's American Planning Association journals that came out shortly after Hurricane Katrina, there was an article about NYC's ability (actually, inability) to effectively evacuate, even with sufficient warning. From what I remember of the article, a bit more than half of NYC's population live without cars and would rely on mass transit to evacuate. It is estimated that evacuations would require 24 hours or so. In a very quick internet search, I found an estimate of 56% without cars and 17.5 hours for an orderly evacuation. Granted, a majority of contributors to this site are not from NYC, but NYC is not the alone in this problem. In the case of an impending hurricane (with a day or two advance notice), low lying areas of Westchester would likely be asked to relocate/evacuate. This would still take some time. There are only a limited number of ways out of this area (bridges, tunnels, etc). A Ramapo fault earthquake (which, as was stated earlier, does run very close to Indian Point, and would give NO advanced warning) could trigger an evacuation that is not limited to only the low-lying areas. Either way, not every resident in Westchester has access to a car and would rely on some form of mass transit. I looked through the Indian Point evacuation plan that everyone within 10 miles of IP receives in the mail over the weekend. I suppose I'm lucky that an evacuation bus route (m118) runs down my road and stops at the 2nd closest corner to my house. Then again, that bus route won't do any good if the bus driver doesn't decide to take off and leave the area on his own instead of going to get his bus. I'll see if I can get an estimate of Ossining's population without cars. I'm sure there's ways to find out this number for all municipalities in Westchester. In the discussion of natural disaster preparedness, this is a factor that I would assume is taken into account. For the rest of us who aren't included in the preparation plans, it's something to keep in mind.

I visited the NYC Police Museum with my 3 year old son yesterday. On the way out, I picked up a postcard advertising a web site: rememberthetrianglefire.org which was set up to commemorate the fire that occurred March 25, 1911 (100 years ago). At any rate, I thought I would share that there's apparently going to be a ton of stuff happening that can be found on the web site. But, in case anyone doesn't have time to go through the site, there's going to be two TV documentaries about it. Both will probably be interesting to anyone who's a bit of a history buff with a fire twist. First, tomorrow (Feb 28 @ 9PM) on PBS: American Experience -- link Second, March 21 on HBO: link

Great idea, especially using a video with no FD on scene to nit-pick. Looking forward to hearing/reading the ideas from this.

RIP Officer Falcone. Outstanding final act of helping to save the 3 year old child.

Thank you for the link to the pictures. The streets look like they were packed pretty tight, and I can start make out most of the apparatus placement from these pictures. I can imagine there must have been at least a little bit of a logistical headache that came with trying to direct incoming units to get to and set up in particular locations. Great pictures and thanks.

That video shows a lot of fire from that one side. I would love to see which apparatus (or at least what types - eng, ladder, tower ladder) were placed where. It's probably not going to happen with anything other than a sketch, but I think it would be a great learning tool to see where the different trucks were placed. EDIT: I attached 2 different views from Bing maps in case anyone could use them to add some of this information. It looks like it was really tight on the two (B and C) exposures.

The old 99 has already left the village. It went to a department somewhere in PA.

As far as public education goes, there was a lighted sign just past the tolls on the Tappan Zee Bridge announcing the new law when I came back home yesterday. That's a lot of drivers each day. I would assume that there are similar efforts being made at other major crossings.

This is true. Add 4) job outside of town/district. However, it's not impossible for someone to manage those commitments with the commitment one must make towards a volunteer department. I know as I joined after the 1) wife, 2) house, and 3) kid. It's now kids. I would never claim to make the most calls in my company, but I certainly pull my weight and find myself near the top of the responses list. That is only possible because I have a very understanding 1) wife and 3) kids. The house kind of takes care of itself and doesn't give me much grief. At any rate, if the future of volunteer departments is in question or doubt then it's probably time to do something different. One common complaint is that it's too expensive to live in this area and the people who can afford to live here aren't the people who will volunteer. I don't completely agree with that. It may be that the departments need to go after a different person as a member than they did 10, 20, or 30 years ago. It's not unusual to look at a membership list and see sons, friends, cousins, and relatives of former members. If those are the people are being forced out of the area due to economic reasons (which is a shame), departments MUST look beyond the families of current members. Times are changing and the membership of a department may need to change equally with the times. I'm certainly not suggesting I know how to do that, but merely stating that an open mind may need to be kept in order to keep a department or company viable. There does seem to be a lower value placed on volunteering from a majority of the population now. But some people will still have the time (or a very understanding family) and will find the value in volunteering. I don't think it's impossible.

I read about this in the NY Times over the weekend. I believe it was in the Metropolitan section. Here's a link to the article on their website: Organ Donation: Let the Market Rule? The article doesn't go into too much detail about this program other than this will be a trailing vehicle and that this is a pilot program that has never been tested in another city. The rest of the article is interesting because it goes into the "economics" of organ donation. If nothing else, it's an ethical question that is sure to produce a wide range of reactions and opinions. EDIT: I forgot to mention that some of the comments at the bottom of the article (at the time of this edit, there were 83) are interesting and probably just begin to touch the ethical questions that will be raised by this.

I believe that the final report about this tragedy has been posted here in the not too distant past, and I'm sure that many members of this site have read through it. However, it's probably worth all of our time to re-read the final report about this particular fire in order to learn from this tragedy. In that way, we can reflect and remember their sacrifices, while at the same time gaining some knowledge so as to avoid a repeat tragedy. tr-134.pdf

Cool - I'm usually on top of these things as I teach Earth Science. In fact, I have a classroom seismograph. When I get in tomorrow, I'll check to see if anything was recorded. Although I'm not too optimistic because I don't remember seeing anything when I left school this afternoon.

I listened to most of this call at the firehouse with a few others. I was impressed with the response by all involved and would like to give extra recognition to the dispatchers who were relaying information from the caller with statements like "the caller hears your sirens", "they're calling out for you", "they can see the helicopter now". While I put their statements in quotes, I can't be certain that those are exact quotes. Either way, their professionalism and help certainly speed up the rescue of the individuals.

I’m not so sure facebook’s just a firehouse problem. There an addictive quality to the instantaneous posting/sharing of information about yourself/others. Society (the media, etc) has become more reliant on instant updates and facebook, twitter, etc. all feed right into that. Look near the bottom of this web page, and there's little buttons to let any one of us share this topic with others through a variety of feeds (twitter, facebook, digg, etc). It's not isolated to this site or fire-related sites. Just about any on-line news source provides these same options. I teach in a high school and it’s obvious that students are nuts about facebook. I also see students regularly getting upset about what someone else posted, etc. Outside of school, I know a couple in the middle of a divorce and one of their issues is one person’s inability to stay off facebook. My opinion is that people are more likely to post something on facebook that they would never say face-to-face about (or to) someone. Ironic since it’s called “face”book.

I used to live near Lawrence and taught high school there for a year about 8 years ago. It's sad to say that it doesn't sound like there has been much, if any positive changes since I left. I'll be honest to say that I don't remember who the mayor was at the time when I worked there, but I do know there were city finance problems that were being blamed on the teachers, firefighters, etc for several years before I worked there. During my year there, I never had the opportunity to visit a fire house or get to know any of the firefighters. But I did have one student who's home was lost in a fire during the school year, and another who called me the year after I left to say he lost everything in a fire. Besides the lost firefighter jobs, Lawrence is a city in desperate need of help in many, many areas.

The important part of this statement has to do with how many tall buildings there are. Part of the law requires an assessment of the buildings in the response area to determine what type of self-rescue system is required. The law (here as a pdf) -- starting somewhere down on pg 4 -- states that departments need to (i) review the height of buildings including mutual aid buildings, (ii) assess the department's SOPs concerning rescue of firefighters from elevations, (iii) identify firefighter risks that will be addressed either by (a) already in place SOPs or ( b ) by some sort of rope system if the current SOPs will not provide an adequet level of safety. Once the risk assessment has been completed, then the department needs to provide the systems to the members. Plus training, plus maintainence. My intrepretation: - Only single story ranch houses in the district? = not much chance to have firefighters trapped at high elevations = probably don't need a complete rope system...just some modified SOP's - 4, 5, 6, etc. story buildings in the district? = much greater chance of being trapped at high elevations = a need for some system. The language of the law is pretty dry, but pretty clear at the same time.

During my first look, and subsequent review of the pictures, I would have imagined that the Ladder operator responded from work, didn't imediately get dressed, and was in a hurry to set up the outriggers. As was pointed out, in later pictures, he was in full (full enough? He didn't have a pack on...maybe it was next to him) PPE and was working the aerial. While he is not in an IDLH environment when he is standing on the turn-table, there is always a chance that he may need to get up the ladder in a real hurry to effect a rescue of a civilian or another firefighter. It's a small chance, but it's a chance, nonetheless. In that very small chance, he would enter the IDLH environment. I don't know enough of departmental policies anywhere to even guess how many departments would require complete PPE (with a pack on or next to) for the ladder and/or pump operators. Or the incident commander, for that matter. I guess I didn't really answer the question. Can we add to the question if a pack is necessary? Do any departments require that?

Chief - Wanted to send you a PM...but your not accepting any more. Maybe your box is full. - Eric

I've just finished reading the book "Triangle" which is, obviously, the story of this fire. But, the book begins with a look at the social conditions in NYC that led up to the fire and summarizes the legal impacts and development of unions and fire codes that were implemented as a result of this fire. It was a good book. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in 1) fire history or/or 2) US social & labor history.

At the high school here, they just (around 12:00 noon) announced a water main break near Stewart Place and Water St. Don't know if this is the same thing.

I was scanning through the latest round of AFG grant announcements and I am pleasantly surprised that five departments from Westchester have been awarded federal money so far this year. I may have missed some, but the departments from Westchester I see are: Banksville Larchmont Millwood New Rochelle Ossining I wrote the Ossining grant, so I know how much work went into these. Congratulations to everyone so far.