Hardened Resolve
“[It] hardened my resolve that we will be prepared to overcome anything handed to the fire service in the future.”
I said this in the September issue of FIRE CHIEF in a story discussing the seven years since the attacks of 9/11, but I never expected my statement to be tested so soon.
Sunday, Sept. 14, started with clear skies and mild temperatures. Forecasters predicted rain for later that day, with 3 to 6 inches accumulating over the next three days — the outcome of Hurricane Ike spreading into the Ohio Valley. While we‘ve been through tornadoes, floods, winter storms and even an occasional earth tremor, this storm brought nine hours of sustained 75-mph winds with gusts to 85 mph. It seemed that instead of just rain, we were at the confluence of two massive weather fronts, including the remnants of Hurricane Ike that developed into these damaging winds equivalent to a category-one hurricane.
While we did not suffer near the devastation of Galveston or Houston, Texas, the wind left six dead (including the daughter and son-in-law of longtime friend Chief Don Bennett of the Fairfield Fire Department) and 720,000 residences or commercial businesses without power — nearly 90% of the nearly two million residents of the greater Cincinnati area were in a blackout.
Our department mobilized and we handled nearly 90 fire and EMS calls in the first 10-hour period. These included several major incidents, one being a structure fire in a neighboring community that injured two firefighters and was started when a transformer pole snapped and fell into the building. Throughout the week our call volume continued well above norm. While the power company struggled to get a handle on the outages, we dealt with the human side of the issues.
Firefighters, themselves with damaged homes, remained on the job helping others in need. Some folks just needed to be told how to cope. Some seniors needed refrigeration or refills for their prescriptions. Transports to hospital emergency rooms soared. All needed to deal with the damage, the fallen wires and trees, getting around a huge number of blocked roads and remembering how to drive when there were no traffic signals.
The pluses and minuses will lead to more planning and preparation. The pluses included that emergency generators worked so that operations and communications continued seamlessly, and the early set up of an EOC coordinated the work of fire, police and public works in handling the emergency details. The minuses included the power company, that had been recently purchased by an out of state company, changed their game plan early on and e-mailed the changes to all fire and police responders — only we didn‘t have e-mail up to receive them.
This week, as power is being restored to the area and things begin to get back to normal, I can look at the diligence and determination of the fire service not letting this storm get the best of us. We handled not only our own extraordinary call volume, but were able to assist four of our neighboring communities on five major fires, two in which recreational vehicles parked close to the homes, possibly to power home appliances, caught fire and quickly developed into structure fires.
Once again, whether in Texas, Ohio or elsewhere, the fire service was up to the challenge and answered the call. Once again, we showed our resolve.
