Posts Categorized: Sar
Breaking News: Huge Earthquake Hits Chile
Quake was reported as being an 8.8 magnitude and is also the cause of a tsunami that is expected to strike various nations in the Pacific basin.
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Report From Haiti
US&R teams from around the world are engaging missions in Haiti: New York TF 1, Florida TFs 1 and 2, Virginia 1, California 2, and Colorado 1 are working in country, as well as teams from Jamaica, Costa Rica, Salvador, Peru, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Luxemburg, Canada, Russia, Spain, China, France, Iceland, St. Domingo, Mexico, Netherlands, the UK and Colombia.
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US&R in Haiti: Wishing vs. Planning
Every community must understand its vulnerabilities and the potential for disaster, and plan accordingly. The caveat to this is, that despite the presence of a written plan, you can have every contingency covered and discussed, if you don’t understand and practice the plan, it isn’t worth the paper it is written on.
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Urban Search and Rescue – Rockbreaking 101
Since there seems to be a huge lean forward right now from people who want to know more about US&R, and since US&R is (and has been) one of my main projects for over twenty years, I figure I'll take the opportunity to point you all in some directions for information.
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Hypocrisy
When a man will condemn others but will not subject himself to the same ethical standards, that, my friends, is a hypocrite. We talk about people living in glass houses and the logic for their not throwing stones, but we often fail to hold people to …
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1984
I woke up very early this morning with some reflections of how the last week has gone and was thinking back to how much easier it was in the "old days". While the year 1984 has certain significance to many (you know, the book), the year has certain sig…
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The Case for Credentialing – An Opposing View
I'm distressed that a comment got sent to my spam filter regarding an earlier post and for that I apologize. The poster made the comment that he didn't think I'd print it. As it is, I would hope by now that readers understand that I welcome opposin…
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The Case for Credentialing – Those Who Can't Get In
My final group of people who are not happy with credentialing efforts are the "outsiders". To me, they are the ones with the most logical and compelling concerns about credentialing. Ironically, these people are often those already with some responsi…
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The Case for Credentialing – Those Who Can't Get In
My final group of people who are not happy with credentialing efforts are the "outsiders". To me, they are the ones with the most logical and compelling concerns about credentialing. Ironically, these people are often those already with some responsi…
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The Case for Credentialing – Answering Your Comments
I hate to break free in the middle of this series like this, but there were some comments made that I wanted to discuss. Since one is on one post and the other is on another post, I felt the need to tie them together and talk really quickly to the issu…
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The Argument for Credentialing – Moving On
Now that we have discussed the four major players in the argument against credentialing, lets talk about the argument for it.
A credential is only as good as the standard by which it is issued. The point of having a credential should be to identify an…
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The Case for Credentialing – Opportunists and Profiteers
[caption id="attachment_464" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="SC-TF1 in Chalmette, LA during Katrina ops."][/caption]
And then, there are the profiteers. My intent with Firehouse Zen is not to use it as a place to vent, but as a place to enlight…
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Update to the Series – Spontaneous Bystanders Unite
I guess I had an idea ahead of its time, even if it was only 48 hours ahead.:
There are indeed a few challenges with this kind of emergent response, problems that if resolved, would go a long way toward goodwill with the community in general (it seems li…
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The Case for Credentialing – Organizations That Need to Go Away
[caption id="attachment_452" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="HHIFRD Truck 6 working a grinder."][/caption]
Here's one for you; a subject near and dear to my heart and the reason why we have standards. As a matter of clearing up any legal challe…
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The Case for Credentialing – The Spontaneous Bystander
First, we have the genuine thing, the spontaneous bystander, who sees a need for action, then does something about it. Rescue911 commented on the story of the Good Samaritan and how a traveler, with no reason to do so other than to help his fellow man…
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The Case For Credentialing – The Argument
[caption id="attachment_436" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="SC-TF1 in Chalmette, September 2005"][/caption]
As discussed in the last post, there are those who are against credentialing, for their own reasons. Because I have had plenty of discu…
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The Case for Credentialing
[caption id="attachment_430" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Side of an OFFICIAL SC-TF1 vehicle in Louisiana during Katrina."][/caption]
I'm about to launch into a multi-part blog to discuss the merits of credentialing. Right now I am aware of …
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The Past Will Continue To Haunt Us
I'm supposed to be working on my final Executive Fire Officer paper but in doing some literature review, I came across a voice from the past. I happened upon a copy of "The Fire Chief's Handbook" from 1978. Now to someone like me, 1978 doesn't sound …
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Growth
If you aren't making mistakes, you aren't reaching far enough. Of course, when we are talking about something like making a decision on dinner, it's one thing, but when it is something where your career is on the line, it's a whole other ballgame.
The p…
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Thoughts While Sitting in Traffic
Sorry for not being around lately. I've had family in town and lots of stuff to do with the wife and girls. However, as I returned home from work the other day (this is at about 0645 in the morning), I was riding side-by-side with a vehicle best describe…
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Firefighting as Asymetrical Warfare
There used to be a day when warriors considered it less than chivalrous to take cover or to shoot from a prone position. Most of us in this millennium probably would never consider it a good idea to stand up and march forward upright into a withering h…
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Let's Take an Unemotional Look at the Problem
While I have been pursuing the discussion on The Kitchen Table only peripherally as I have been very busy lately, I noted an undertone of something that I guess has nagged at me for quite some time. After thinking about it for a few days, I realized th…
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Planning for US&R Teams
I was sharing some information with a colleague tonight and I realized that perhaps some of you reading might like access to this research as well. This is my paper on Developing a Strategic Plan for the South Carolina Urban Search and Rescue Program.
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The Difference Between Fact and Fiction
Firehouse.com has an article on the NIST study being conducted in Maryland and Virginia regarding fire company staffing and I am excited to see what the eventual findings are. Why am I "excited"? It seems like a pretty interesting feeling to have abo…
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It's a Zen Thing
This isn't a very insightful post, but in light of the outstanding traffic we have been getting now with links on Dave Statter's STATter 911 blog, FireGeezer.com (at least they promised the link this week), FireRescue1.com's The Kitchen Table, and of co…
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