Where firefighters come to talk training

What are You Going to Do? - Tornado's

Things get messed up on occasion at almost every level of almost every occupation. As an example I posted a Round Table question in Fire Engineering Magazine a month or two ago. Due to extensive and I must add quite insightful and interesting coverage of Hurricane Sandy in the June and July issues, it kind of got lost. I think it was a great opportunity for those that “do”, to help those that “don’t” (but should). And in an occupation that prides itself on brother and sisterhood, isn’t that the idea – helping each other.

To make a kind-of short story shorter, the question (it’s really not a question) was “if your department has a Tornado policy/procedure please post a link to it” so those departments that don’t have one don’t have to reinvent the wheel. I would be very surprised if most procedures manuals are not on line in today’s world. If your department has a policy but it is not on-line, condense it into a few bullets.

I did get one comment on Round Table and it was from a firefighter on a department with no policy, looking for a place to start.

In the event of a Tornado Warning, what should on-duty firefighters do? Pull rigs outside on the approach? Leave them inside? Where do the firefighters go?

If there is a touch down, what is your policy? Do you go out and do a quick district survey? Do you take other runs or survey first? If it did touch down what contingencies do you have for moving down tree/lumber and debris from streets? Are bull dozers and endloaders available to quickly clear main streets?

I hope I have given you something to think about and I would appreciate it if you could post what you do in your community so those that do not have a policy ion place can create one. . No one is immune from tornados, hurricanes or other natural disaster.

If you want to go to the Round Table link, here it is: http://www.fireengineering.com/articles/2013/07/roundtable-fire-dep...

Comment

You need to be a member of Fire Engineering Training Community to add comments!

Join Fire Engineering Training Community

Comment by Skip Coleman on August 27, 2013 at 3:50pm: Thanks JIm,

It works.

Comment by Jim Stevenson on August 27, 2013 at 3:27pm: Here is a link to the SOG that I helped write. This SOG is for a Wide Area Search, which has four(4) qualifiers to be considered a Wide Area Search: 1) A Large Geographical area is affected, 2) The number of victims is unknown, 3) The incident overwhelms local response capabilities and 4) the response requires a variety of resources. This can be used for Hurricanes, Tornadoes, Earthquakes, In-flight Commercial Airline Explosions to name just a few instances it can be applied.

http://www.fireengineering.com/content/dam/fe/online-articles/docum...

If anyone has any questions or needs further information, please feel free to contact me.

Comment by Skip Coleman on August 27, 2013 at 2:04pm: Jim, Let me check.

Comment by Jim Stevenson on August 27, 2013 at 10:56am: I have it in .docx and also in PDF. How do I post it on here? I can send it to you and you can post it if that makes it easier.

Comment by Skip Coleman on August 27, 2013 at 7:11am: Thanks Jim,
Is there a way you could post al link (click and copy) it here? Is it PDF? What format it.

Comment by Jim Stevenson on August 26, 2013 at 8:21pm: Myself and the PM from MI-TF1 wrote an SOG for Wide Area Search that can be applied for tornados. We then presented it to the four county strike teams in our region. Please feel free to email me and I can send you a copy of it.

Jim Stevenson

Search Team Manager, MI-TF1

Pugs09@sbcglobal.net

RSS

Welcome to
Fire Engineering Training Community

Sign Up
or Sign In

Or sign in with:

Policy Page

PLEASE NOTE

The login above DOES NOT provide access to Fire Engineering magazine archives. Please go here for our archives.

CONTRIBUTORS NOTE

Our contributors' posts are not vetted by the Fire Engineering technical board, and reflect the views and opinions of the individual authors. Anyone is welcome to participate.

For vetted content, please go to www.fireengineering.com/issues.

We are excited to have you participate in our discussions and interactive forums. Before you begin posting, please take a moment to read our community policy page.

Be Alert for Spam
We actively monitor the community for spam, however some does slip through. Please use common sense and caution when clicking links. If you suspect you've been hit by spam, e-mail peter.prochilo@clarionevents.com.