Another post in the same month!!!! Fire Department Training

 

This is a picture (A rather poor picture) of one of the Greek houses on campus.

It was scheduled to be torn down Summer 2013.  The city's training chief approached me about contacting the owners to see about using it for fire department training.  Which we did.

 

 

 

This simple training effort grew into a real state wide event, that included the state's Task Force, National Guard and a couple groups from Israel!!  (How often does that happen?)

 

The main group from Israel is called: "Home Front Command"

(Dark green) Three engineers from Israel preceded the main group.  These three, prepared the sited used during the drill, that included the above frat house, an unused building used by the university and an old Post Office in the city. 

 

 

Here's the frat house as it would be after a major tornado.

 

 

 

The various crews worked to flatten the house, creating voids where mannequins

were hidden.  The three locations varied in construction type.

Here's a victim, can you see him?

 

 

Busted up frat house.

 

 

A main function was for crews to build supports in order to be able to

search in relative safety.

 

 

 

They used many sheets of plywood and 4x4's

 

Here's the Operations Chief and an engineer from Israel.

 

 

A fire department crew

 

 

Retribution!!  You are sooo blogged right now.

 

 

This activity attracted lots of attention from the public.

Several apparatus on the streets.

 

 

It took time to mobilize the groups and equipment. 

 

Finally some heavy equipment arrived to do the major lifting.

 

 

 

Guard on guard!

It was hot!  about 90 at 1600hours.

 

 

Jane and I had Israeli guests for dinner before the training.

Very nice folks in deed.

 

 

This type of training is rare due to the expense and availability of

buildings and so on.  I was pleased to be a part of it.

 

I spent the majority of time at the command center as

Command Staff Safety Officer.

 

Here's a couple guys from Israel.

We will look them up if we ever return to Israel.