NEWS
Nine homes red-tagged after mudslides; some residents feel lucky they were spared
By Corina Knoll and Ruben Vives
February 7, 2010 | 2:39 pm PST

Although a layer of muck had flowed into his garage and around his home, La Cañada Flintridge resident Mike Thomassian, 62, on Sunday counted himself lucky. The interior of his house had been spared from the rain-induced mud that flooded his neighborhood.

But nine homes in the foothill area suffered enough damage to be red-tagged, which means they’re partially collapsed and uninhabitable.

With crumbling walls, sunken roofs, shattered windows and mud-filled living rooms, the structures are in a precarious position with more rain forecast for Tuesday evening.

Although weather specialists expect only a couple of inches of rainfall, L.A. County Department of Public Works spokesman Bob Spencer said residents needed to stay on heightened alert.

“There’s always a worry when we don’t have time to clean the debris basins out,” Spencer said.

Since last month’s storm — which cost the county about $20 million — Spencer said 300 dump trucks have operated around the clock to empty the debris basins. Those loads are dumped into three sediment basins in the foothills. The county is in the midst of getting a permit for a fourth sediment basin, and officials asked Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Sunday morning to expedite the approval process, which can take years.

“It’s needed badly in the near future based on the amount of sediment and debris that’s coming out of the forest,” Spencer said.

“We’re trying to calculate how much room we have left in the three sediment areas we’re using. If the debris keeps coming out at the rate that it is, we need a fourth one very quickly.”

© 2010 The Los Angeles Times

NEWS
Debris basins again full of mud; all evacuation orders lifted in L.A. foothills
By Corina Knoll
February 7, 2010 | 12:23 pm PST

As hundreds of workers prepared to deploy Sunday to empty catch basins once again filled with mud and debris, all evacuation orders were lifted for residents of Southern California’s foothills.

L.A. County Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Nicole Nishida said the evacuation orders had been lifted,  including for Paradise Valley in La Cañada Flintridge.

Catch basins in the foothills had only recently been emptied after the weeklong storm that hit Southern California last month when Saturday morning’s torrent of rain filled them again. Bob Spencer, L.A. County Department of Public Works spokesman, said about 1,000 of the department’s employees were expected to be deployed Sunday across the county and would use bulldozers, plows, dump trucks and cranes to sweep neighborhood streets and attempt to clear out inlets and debris basins.

“That series of storms two weeks ago, we took about 300,000 cubic yards of material out of our debris basins,” L.A. County Department of Public Works spokesman Bob Spencer said. “This is going to be about the same.”

The basins, he said, would take several weeks to empty completely.

“The day after an event like this, what’s in the debris basins is basically soup,” Spencer said. “It’s like trying to clean out a swimming pool with a shovel. The water’s just going to slide out.”

With a capacity of 10,000 cubic yards, the Mullally flood basin on Manistee Drive in La Cañada Flintridge is one of the city’s smallest but is crucial to the area. Its overflow on Saturday sent mud oozing into dozens of homes in the Paradise Valley neighborhood.

“What happened with Mullally yesterday is a huge boulder clogged the inlet and caused the debris to top over and come down the street,” Spencer said. “We were prepared for that, that’s why all the K-rails were here. But there was such a tremendous amount of debris that it overwhelmed” the barriers.

Of the 43 mud-damaged homes in La Cañada Flintridge and La Crescenta, nine were red-tagged, meaning entry was temporarily prohibited. In addition, 25 vehicles were damaged.

© 2010 The Los Angeles Times

A large explosion has occurred at the Kleen Energy Power Plant in Middletown and there are reports of mass casualties.

The explosion happened at 11:30 am eastern time. It’s cause is believed due to a natural gas leak.

Two fatalities and dozens of injuries were immediately confirmed although the death toll was expected to rise.

The explosion was felt for several hundred miles throughout the state.Many thought it was an earthquake, and witnesses have reported that a massive fire-ball rose above the explosion site.

“I felt the ground shake and thought a tree had fallen nearby,” said Ethan Goller, who at the time was working in his garage in Ivoryton, 20 miles from Middletown.

A local resident, Bernadette Nyland, told WTNH TV she was in her yard when the explosion occurred.

“They were doing the firing of the engines this morning and so something went wrong and it blew up and flames came shooting up almost as tall as that stack,” she told the station.(SOURCE)

Emergency crews are on the scene of an explosion and fire at a power plant in Middletown.There are as many as 20 ambulances at the plant.

“We’re in a search and rescue mode,” said Middletown deputy fire marshal Al Santostefano, who confirmed multiple injuries.

“There are bodies everywhere,” a witness said. Another witness said many victims may be buried in rubble.(SOURCE -COURANT)

The plant was undergoing some construction work at the time of the explosion.

Kleen Energy Power Plant Middletown,Conn.

Follow this breaking story here…

The Sun UK

NECN COMCAST

New York Daily News

NEWS
Residents, governor assess mudslide damage in Station fire burn area
By Rong-Gong Lin II, Victoria Kim and Ruben Vives
February 7, 2010 | 8:20 am PST

Residents and officials were assessing the damage this morning after mudslides damaged 43 homes in the foothills hit by the Station fire.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was scheduled to tour the Ocean View Boulevard area this morning.

Most of the evacuations of residents were lifted, and most of the canyon roads closed by mud damage Saturday were now open.

The mudslides occurred during an intense storm early Saturday morning. The power of the debris flowing off the mountain pushed a 10-ton boulder into a crucial catch basin in La Cañada Flintridge.

The boulder clogged the drain like a giant stopper, and the ashen muck had nowhere to go but through the Paradise Valley neighborhood on the northern end of Ocean View Boulevard. Mud flowed two miles downhill, all the way to Foothill Boulevard.

“It looked like the Niagara Falls was coming down the street,” said Amanda Manukian, who lives in the 5400 block of Ocean View Boulevard. She said she saw firefighters scramble out of her neighbor’s home when a burst of rainfall poured down, threatening the crew.

The mudflow twisted garage doors into dented accordions, disintegrated walls of sandbags and knocked over 4,000-pound concrete barriers that lined the road to divert water away from homes. About 25 vehicles were damaged, flowing down the street and smashing against walls, trees and one another.

Despite the damaging flows, there were no reports of deaths or serious injuries.

Read the full story here.

Mudslide cleanup begins in La Cañada Flintridge as Schwarzenegger visits
February 7, 2010 | 10:20 am PST

Paradise Valley was anything but on Sunday.

Residents of the La Cañada Flintridge neighborhood had been forced to evacuate Saturday after an early-morning rainstorm unexpectedly pummeled the area and sent mud flowing into their homes.

A day later, cleanup crews appeared along the dirt-soaked Ocean View Boulevard, which was littered with giant rocks, fallen mailboxes and trees. About 30 homes had been damaged in the area.

Department of Public Works employees scooped up mud with shovels and pushed back K-rails that had skated away from sidewalks.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger arrived in the morning and surveyed the critical debris basin that had been clogged by a 10-ton boulder and aided the slurry in filling the cul-de-sacs that dot the hillside.

Schwarzenegger was later introduced to a teary-eyed Karineh Mangassarian on Manistee Drive, who had refused to leave her mud-blanketed home. She pleaded for help and the two hugged.

Building inspectors were expected to arrive later in the day to assess the damage, L.A. County Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Nicole Nishida said. She also said evacuations were still in place for the neighborhood.

© 2010 The Los Angeles Times

NEWS
‘Niagara’ of mud hits homes
By Rong-Gong Lin II, Victoria Kim and Ruben Vives
February 7, 2010

Dozens of houses in La Cañada Flintridge are damaged or destroyed in a storm that defied forecast.

An unexpectedly powerful rainstorm unleashed a torrent of mud that inundated more than 40 houses Saturday, leaving La Cañada Flintridge’s northernmost neighborhood awash in boulders, dented cars and broken homes.

The force of the mudflow appeared to catch residents and officials off guard, as the forecast initially called for a light to moderate rainstorm. No evacuations had been ordered Thursday or Friday, when the rain began to fall.

But before dawn on Saturday, an intense band of rain cells formed over the mountains burned in the massive Station fire. What was supposed to be a fast-moving storm instead stalled, dumping rain at an alarming rate. The power of the debris flowing off the mountain pushed a 10-ton boulder into a critical catch basin in La Cañada Flintridge.

The boulder clogged the drain like a giant stopper and the ashen muck had nowhere to go but through the Paradise Valley neighborhood on the northern end of Ocean View Boulevard. Mud flowed two miles downhill, all the way to Foothill Boulevard.

“It looked like the Niagara Falls was coming down the street,” said Amanda Manukian, who lives in the 5400 block of Ocean View Boulevard. She said she saw firefighters scramble out of her neighbor’s home when a burst of rainfall poured down, threatening the crew.

The mudflow twisted garage doors into dented accordions, disintegrated walls of sandbags and knocked over 4,000-pound concrete barriers that lined the road to divert water away from homes. About 25 vehicles were damaged, flowing down the street and smashing against walls, trees and one another.

Despite the damaging flows, there were no reports of deaths or serious injuries. By Saturday night, evacuation orders had been lifted for most of the more than 500 homes that had been under mandatory orders throughout the day. Only homes in the Paradise Valley neighborhood remained evacuated.

Of the 43 homes that were damaged, 31 had mud or other debris enter the house, while 12 suffered major structural damage. About 30 were located in Paradise Valley, while the others were scattered elsewhere in La Cañada Flintridge and La Crescenta.

Elsewhere in the Los Angeles region, the rainstorm flooded freeways and caused numerous accidents, caused scattered mudslides in hillside neighborhoods and washed out portions of at least two mountain roads: Angeles Crest Highway and Ortega Highway near Idyllwild. Scattered power outages were also reported.

But the damage was worst at the top of the hill in La Cañada Flintridge’s Paradise Valley. The rains made good on worst-case-scenario predictions that geologists and emergency officials have been warning about since the Station fire denuded 250 square miles of the San Gabriel Mountains.

Some residents were awakened by water flooding waist-deep into their homes. Two men rescued a bedridden 86-year-old woman trapped in her room, tethered to an oxygen tank, her bed floating in the rising water.

On Manistee Drive, a white single-story home appeared submerged in several feet of dirt, looking as if a giant child had dropped the house in a sand pit.

“The one time they don’t evacuate, this happens,” said Justin Jesscoat, an Ocean View Boulevard resident whose parked car was swept down the street.

P. Michael Freeman, chief of the L.A. County Fire Department, acknowledged that crews were operating on weather forecasts that turned out to be incorrect. “I think it’s imperative that everybody understand the unpredictability of predictions,” Freeman said.

By Saturday night, the precipitation had largely cleared out of the Los Angeles area. Forecasters expected dry and warmer conditions Sunday and Monday, but there is a chance rain can return on Tuesday.

The National Weather Service had forecast that up to 1 1/2 inches would fall on the coast and in the valleys and as much as 3 1/2 inches would fall in the mountains and foothills by Saturday.

But actual rainfall was more intense, with about 4 3/4 inches falling in the mountains. Downtown L.A. saw 2.85 inches of rain since Thursday night; Santa Monica, 3.24; and the Hollywood Reservoir, 4.09.

Saturday’s storm also moved more slowly than anticipated. A ridge of high pressure over the central United States unexpectedly stalled, causing the storm to sit over L.A. and give the region a more thorough drenching, said Bill Hoffer, a spokesman for the National Weather Service.

Other hillside residents in the region were affected by the storm. In the Hollywood Hills, Susan Morris, 42, who lives on Nichols Canyon Road, was roused at 5 a.m. by a tenant living in her guest house who saw mud coming through the ceiling. She said her husband, P.J. Pesce, 47, ran outside and saw mudslides had filled the road with tons of dirt, forcing floodwater toward their 1940s ranch house.

With the help of a neighbor, Morris said, she and her husband dug a trench to redirect water away from their house and into the canyon.

The couple had tried to protect their home with sandbags, but the mud pushed its way past that barrier, a fence and a concrete retaining wall, Morris said.

In La Cañada Flintridge, Eric Grey also was jolted awake by a loud bang at 4 a.m. He jumped from his bed and peered out the window of his home at the base of Snover Canyon, on Castleknoll Road, a small street just east of Ocean View Drive.

It was everything that he feared. The runoff — muddy water with boulders the size of bowling balls — had busted through the 4-foot-high barricade of sandbags, a plywood wall and a chain-link fence. A sheet of mud, nearly half a foot deep and 16 feet wide, cascaded across the backyard.

Grey ran to the bathroom window. At the corner of the yard, a geyser of water crashed into the remains of the wall. He had to get his family out. He didn’t know what else might be coming down that mountain.

He got the children and the dogs into the car and raced down the street to Palm Crest Elementary School. The water and the storm seemed to be following him. He continued to the fire station and banged on the window. Inside, crews were getting ready to head out. When Grey asked about an evacuation center, he was told there wasn’t one. Right then, he was on his own.

As he headed out on Foothill Boulevard, the road — illuminated only by his headlights — was submerged in the torrent of water pouring down the steep hill. He was finally able to reach friends who offered to take him in.

Grey got back to his home a little past 7 a.m. The backyard was devastated, but the home seemed safe. Later that afternoon, authorities stopped by to see if the property needed to be tagged. It didn’t.

“We live with reminders of all that is out of our control,” Grey said. “We love the house and love being in Southern California. This is just a little dirt and rocks. The sun will shine again.”

Times staff writers Amina Khan, Margot Roosevelt, Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Jeff Gottlieb, Nicole Santa Cruz, Raja Abdulrahim and Thomas Curwen contributed to this article.

© 2010 The Los Angeles Times

NEWS
Evacuations continue as officials scramble to clear debris basins
By Victoria Kim, Ruben Vives and Nicole Santa Cruz
February 6, 2010 | 9:18 p.m. PST

Rivers of mud and debris damaged or destroyed dozens of homes as they cascaded down the hillsides of La Cañada Flintridge. Crews are racing to make room in catch basins before more rains arrive.

A flash flood warning in the San Gabriel Mountain foothills damaged by the Station fire has been lifted and a second band of rain cells passed through the burn area without triggering more of the mudslides that damaged or destroyed 43 homes in La Cañada Flintridge, closed several roads in the Santa Monica Mountains and washed out portions of Angeles Crest Highway and Ortega Highway near Idyllwild.

But with debris basins along the San Gabriel Mountains near capacity or overflowing, any additional rain or thunder storms will carry the threat of more damaging debris flows.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich, who appeared with officials from the fire and public works departments at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said he was shocked by the storm damage in La Cañada Flintridge, which he felt could have been prevented if the US. Forest Service had acted more quickly to prevent the spread of the Station fire last fall.

“Earlier this morning I toured the site and I was devastated; I was really, really, shocked by what I had seen,” Antonovich said. “The homes destroyed, automobiles pushed out of the way by the storms, the mudslides moving heavy concrete barriers. . . . It was as if you were at Universal Studios on the studio tour seeing a war zone area.”

Evacuation orders remain in place for about 540 homes in parts of La Cañada Flintridge, La Crescenta and Acton until at least 8 p.m., when officials will reevaluate the threats. The city of Sierra Madre, where saturated foothills are threatening to break loose, has also issued evacuation orders.

More than 150 L.A. County firefighters were in the area late today clearing roads and assessing storm damage, said Los Angeles County Fire Inspector Frederic Stowers. He said firefighters will probably remain in the area overnight.

Additional rain bursts could mean mud and debris flows in La Cañada Flintridge, La Crescenta, Glendale, Sunland-Tujunga, Soledad Canyon, Acton and Aliso Canyon. Information is available at the Department of Public Works website.

Public works officials reported one piece of good news: Crews have been able to break apart and remove an 8-to 10-ton boulder that was clogging a critical debris basin above Ocean View Boulevard in La Cañada Flintridge.

Yet the threat is not over.

“I hate to say this, but there might be more damage,” said Nicole Nishida, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, noting the condition of two large debris basins above La Cañada Flintridge. A Red Cross shelter has been set up at La Cañada High School.

At least five homes have been tagged as uninhabitable in the Paradise Valley neighborhood of La Cañada Flintridge at least six others are inundated with mud and debris. In one, mud had reached the roof line.

About 25 vehicles were damaged when they were struck by the K-rails that were put in place to protect homes. Several residents had to be rescued from their homes and cars by firefighters after they became trapped by mud flows, which also slowed evacuations, Stowers said.

“Between the mud, the traffic and the damage, it kind of caused some logjams in getting people out,” he said.

About 9,000 homes in the San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles were without power due to storm damage, and by afternoon 5,000 were still without service, according to MaryAnne Pierson, spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Water and Power. More than 27 crews were working to repair the damage, she said.

The front yard of Amanda Manukian’s home was strewn with mud and the remains of sandbags that had been washed away Saturday morning by heavy rains. Her garage had also flooded.

“It looked like the Niagara Falls was coming down the street,” she said. “This hill right here, half of it came down,” Manukian said, pointing to a hill about a quarter-mile above her home on the 5400 block of Ocean View Boulevard.

At least a foot of debris was reported in some houses, and family photos and furniture could be seen poking out from the rocks and debris that overwhelmed streets and yards.

Leslie Fernandes, 49, told the Associated Press that he awoke in his La Cañada Flintridge home just before 5 a.m. to the sound of thunderous rain. “I heard a roar and a rumble and I went to look outside and there were cars swept down the street,” Fernandes said.

The storm that moved in Friday had not been expected to sit over the Los Angeles region so long, but an overnight high-pressure ridge over the central United States unexpectedly stalled and prevented the weather front from swiftly moving out. The intensity of the predawn rains appeared to catch residents and officials by surprise.

Authorities remain most concerned about the northern edge of Ocean View Boulevard near Manistee Drive in La Cañada Flintridge, a neighborhood that was deluged by a river of mud, rocks and trees as it bore the double blow of a collapsing hillside and an overflowing debris basin.

Both the Mullally debris basin, at the northern tip of Ocean View Boulevard, and the Pickens Canyon debris basin near Ocean View and Foothill boulevards were at capacity. Bulldozers were shoveling out muddy water, boulders and debris in anticipation of more rain. Debris basins are designed to hold in mud, rocks and trees to prevent them from smashing into homes.

The flooding forced closures on several Southern California freeways early Saturday, including the Long Beach Freeway at Willow Avenue; Interstate 5 at Lankershim Boulevard in Sun Valley; and the southbound 110 to the northbound U.S. 101 near downtown Los Angeles.

Topanga Canyon Boulevard was closed at about 4 a.m. between Pacific Coast Highway and Grand View, south of Malibu, Villalobos said. The CHP did not know when it would open. In addition, the Balboa Boulevard offramp off the eastbound 118 in Granada Hills was closed at 7:25 a.m. because of flooding. It remained closed.

Brian Humphrey, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department, said the calls his department has received have been minor, including reports of mud on the curbs and trees down. There have been no mandatory evacuation orders within the city’s 470 square miles, but the department was closely monitoring hillsides. Scattered power outages have affected thousands of customers served by Southern California Edison and the Department of Water and Power.

Officials lifted evacuation orders Saturday night for Sierra Madre, La Crescenta, Acton and most of La Cañada Flintridge as the storm moved out of the area.

Evacuation orders remained in effect for the Paradise Valley section of La  Cañada Flintridge, including Ocean View Boulevard from 5524 and north, Earnslow Drive, Bristow Drive, Derwood Drive, Manistee Drive and Highrim Road. Officials said there were still active debris flows in the area.  They will reevaluate the situation at 10 a.m. Sunday.

More details are available at www.dpwcare.org.

In a statement posted on Sierra Madre’s website, http://sierramadrepio.blogspot.com/, city officials warned residents that with more rain expected overnight, they may be asked to evacuate again. Sandbags were available for assembly at Sierra Madre City Yards.

“There’s still the possibility of hazards as streets may become flooded or blocked by debris with the intermittent storm cells that may pass over the area this evening,” the statement said.

Elsewhere in Sierra Madre, Bailey Canyon Park, Mount Wilson Trail and Chantry Road remained closed.

Times staff writers Rong-Gong Lin II, Jeff Gottlieb and Margot Roosevelt, as well as the Associated Press, contributed to this report.

© 2010 The Los Angeles Times

I like new experiences. Last Monday, 01 February, I had one: the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) evacuated the terminal at OKC Will Rogers World Airport for a security situation.

I was standing around at Gate 4 waiting for my flight when I noticed a couple TSA people walking towards Gate 4. They had a very tense attitude, and both were sweeping both sides of the terminal with their eyes as they walked. The tension in those people was palpable.

One walked to the United gate across from 4, and the other walked down to the end of the terminal (Gate 6 and the Frontier gate). Both still watching. I noticed that a United A320 was waiting off the gate – someone had told it not to finish the taxi to the gate; the airplane front wheels were chocked.

A couple of other TSA people were coming down the terminal, and the American local manager was in the Gate Agent area. All were clearly nervous. About this time, the Automated Announcer Lady came on the intercom and announced “Code Red” several times. That started getting other peoples attention, but not many (I must say that a lot of the people waiting for the flight were oblivious to all this).

Two of the TSA people accosted two of the passengers at Gate 4 and searched their bags. One of the passengers was First Class, I don’t know about the other. The two people seemed to be chosen at random, but you know that random is not always truly random where the TSA is concerned, so who knows. The bag searches were very fast, on the order of 20-30 seconds only, so they could not have been comprehensive.

I asked a passing TSA person what “Code Red” meant, and she said “it’s a Leo thing”. I think she meant LEO, as in Law Enforcement Officer, but that’s just a guess.

About this time another Code Red announcement was made, followed by a siren and another automated announcement that the TSA had demanded the terminal be evacuated, followed by the usual and expected empty words about how it was All For Our Own Good and Our Safety (cue the Star Spangled Banner in the background for effect).

By the time I got up to the Southwest part of the terminal, I saw an unusual sight: the custodial people were out in full force, emptying every trashcan into a big gray cart, leaving the trash can lids on the ground. Clearing the cans of evidence, I imagine. Those people were moving!

I went out the east security checkpoint and got right back in line. I was three people back from where the TSA ID checkers were. I asked two TSA people what the heck was going on, and got the same suspiciously uniform answer: “I can’t say”; whether this means “I’m not supposed to/going to say”, or “I haven’t a friggin’ clue, either”, I don’t know.

After about 15 minutes, they started running people through the “screening” process again. I was back in the terminal and walked right on to my flight in about five minutes. We ended up departing about 45 min late.

None of the people at the American gate were talking. The flight attendant I spoke to on board had no idea, and asked me what had happened. A TSA person I asked as I walked through the detector said “I can’t say”. Hmmm…

The airline people working at the gates did not evacuate, and neither did the people working the various concessions.

News reports later that day indicated that it was an issue with a bag that might have been taken through the screening checkpoint but not screened.

I wonder what really happened.

I did a search on Google for the Code Red phrase, but only found references to the famous color chart for terrorism threat.

So, today was like any other day.

Today was .. different. I went to school, and walked up the stairs to my locker. I opened the door to the second floor and there was a smell that both Alicia and I noticed. It was the smell of gas. We ignored it, and continued on our way to my locker. As she walked me to class, a lady in the hallway started to scream at the students.

“Everyone, BE QUIET!” The vice principal was on the PA system and was announcing the “odd smell” on the second floor. Apparently, the smell couldn’t just be ignored. All classes on the second floor were to be moved into the cafeteria and the auditorium. Students in even numbered classrooms were moved in the cafeteria, and the students in odd-numbered classrooms were moved to the auditorium.

Being one of those second floor students, I was moved to the cafeteria for first period. I sat with two friends, Anna and another dude. We were basically talking during the whole period. Second period, all my classmates moved to the auditorium. All the guys were playing cards, while some people talked with friends, watched movies on their iPods, and other things. At lunch time, there was another announcement. Apparently, there was a gas leak on the second floor and everyone was to evacuate the school. Now, who isn’t happy to hear that?

We grabbed our things quickly from the second floor and went home.

I spent the afternoon at my cousin’s house watching Hannah Montana, then finishing up the poster I was supposed to do for my elementary school a couple days back. Anna and I last went to hand in the poster and help out for twenty minutes before we headed back home.

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Anyways, I just finished cleaning up my room since my mom has been nagging at me for a couple months now. I found some of my old junk and other cool things. Here’s some pictures:

Anyone remember this game?

iEnma by Kaze-Hime

You can find Kaze-Hime’s deviantart profile here.

Vic Mignogna signed my Tamaki Poster @ Anime North 2009

J-14 Magazine Posters (Feb. 2010 edition)

Wrist Rest for Computer

My Current Mousepad

Teen Novels I Own

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Last thought of the day:

Thank you to everyone who looked at my blog recently. I’ve been getting more views everyday. Yesterday was the highest amount of views I received since I started this blog. 119! Thanks!

It was probably at least a year ago, when we were being plagued by bomb scares etc., that the management of the school decided that we were not willing to take anything less than a full-on effort towards disaster preparedness and disaster management. It was decided that we would start out with a detailed pilot project at Aravali, that we will then roll out to the other campuses.

Seeds India were selected as expert partners to work with. I have to say they have been excellent partners for the school to work with, cajoling and pushing when necessary, motivating and encouraging and always very professional.

The work done has been really thorough and has offered some great opportunities for students to get very actively involved, for example with risk identification audits covering every room and space in the school.

The pilot at Aravali has now moved in to advanced stages, with training for teams of teachers and students who will form certain groups;
Search and Rescue Task Force
Fire and Safety Task Force
Safety and First Aid Task Force
Evacuation Task Force

The first two of these groups were engaged in training programmes yesterday, the latter two today. These workshops will be followed by a variety of mock drills involving the whole school.

Here are some pictures from yesterday:

WDBO 580 AM – Ryan Ernde
January 20, 2009

Evacuation flights from Haiti continue to roll in today at Orlando Sanford International Airport.

Carrie Hoeppner with the Florida Department of Children and Families says they are working around-the-clock to assist those coming off the plane.

“For the most part the medical issues we were seeing in the first few days were really due to exhaustion, dehydration and people who hadn’t slept in a number of days.”

So far thirty-two flights have landed, carrying about twenty-one hundred Americans and seven hundred and thirty foreign nationals.

Last Wednesday, the government put a freeze on medical evacuations of Haitians to hospitals in the U.S. for critical care.  Since then, Florida and federal officials have offered conflicting explanations for the freeze, which came after Florida Governor Charlie Crist sent a letter to HHS requesting reimbursement for the cost of Haitian medical care. Crist says his letter was misinterpreted. Still, two Haitians on the evacuation list died waiting for help that never arrived.

Now, officials are saying the freeze was necessary due to an expected influx of visitors for the Super Bowl.  But, why is hospital bed space a concern when there are football games in town, but not at other times? And, why couldn’t states that weren’t hosting the Super Bowl take in the Haitians?

The federal government does appear to lack a plan for efficiently distributing emergency cases among hospitals with necessary facilities.  It has long been recognized that mass casualty events need centralized coordination of medical resources. But, it also seems noteworthy that, on Monday, the federal government resumed medical evacuations and announced that it will reimburse states for emergency care costs, as if the issues are intertwined.

Five days ago, airlifts that previously evacuated Haitian patients to the U.S. for sophisticated medical care were halted, reportedly because a dispute erupted over payment for the care. Late yesterday (Sunday) the US government announced that the freeze on medical evacuations had been lifted.

The White House said the flights were expected to begin again within 12 hours. Medical workers in Haiti had said the suspension put seriously injured patients at risk.

“Having received assurances that additional capacity exists both here and among our international partners, we determined that we can resume these critical flights,” White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a statement.

Exactly how and why the freeze was ordered on Wednesday still is not clear, but it closely followed a letter sent by Florida Governor Charlie Crist to HHS requesting activation of the National Disaster Medical System that “is typically used in domestic disasters and pays for victims’ care.” A spokesperson for the Florida Division of Emergency Management has claimed that poor coordination and limited resources, not costs, motivated the letter. [WaPo]. But, another spokesperson, Sterling Ivey, appeared to contradict that.

“Florida stands ready to assist our neighbors in Haiti, but we need a plan of action and reimbursement for the care we are providing,” Ivey said. [EUNews]

The U.S. military said the cause was “an apparent federal-state dispute over who would pay for their care” required suspending the airlifts.  But, a White House spokesman said Saturday that the problem was not funding but locating suitable medical facilities close to airports able to handle large planes.  The BBC reports that Barth Green, an American doctor in Port-au-Prince, “said the US State Department, Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security had until now co-operated with the programme, but an ‘order from above’ had halted the flights.”

At HHS, EU News reports,  ”a spokeswoman said the Pentagon decided to halt medical evacuations, while a military spokesman said hospitals were becoming unwilling to take more patients.”  Hospital representatives in Florida said they were willing to accept the Haitians whether or not payment could be made, and suggested Gov. Crist was to blame. The U.S. Ambassador to Haiti, Kenneth Merten, said he didn’t know why airlifts were halted, but the problem should be fixed.

After four days of confusion, the problem has indeed been fixed.  But, it is not clear if the policy change came in time to save a five-year-old girl with tetanus.  Doctors said on Saturday that Betina Joseph would die within 24 hours if not placed on a respirator.  By then, two men with tetanus had already died.

UPDATE: The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the 5-year-old girl and two gravely ill infants were flown by private plane to Pennsylvania where two of the children are being treated at hospitals in thanks to Partners in Health, a medical aid nonprofit, and Naomi Rosenberg, a medical student who made arrangements for the transfer.  Global Aeromedical Services donated use of its plane and Sen. John Kerry’s office called on the U.S. military to ensure clearance for the flight.

They drove us along the road through the village to where the Bedouin who had made Nabataean tombs their homes had been relocated. I don’t think the locals often see flatbeds full of soaked tourists – we all waved and laughed, and it was a bit like being a one-car parade! Afterward we travel

Thanks To : DIY interiordesign-tutorials.blogspot.com home-security-tutorials.blogspot.com diy-ehi.blogspot.com

Likin’ today’s reading: “Plan your next vacation. It will give you greater incentive to work hard. Make friends with people who can offer an interesting way of doing things. An older relative or friend will have some very wise advice to share with you.”

I have done so little planning for my next vacation that it barely seems real. In fact, it may not be — it’s Machu Picchu in May, and the area just got hit by torrential rains, with the railway washed out and tourists being evacuated. Reports are that it will be functional again in about 4 weeks; I’d be surprised if that were the case. Still, I had planned to hike the Inca Trail, not take the train. So it’ll be interesting to see, as one person put it, if I’m there as a tourist or on a humanitarian mission. Right now, I’ve got plane tickets, and nothing more, so anything could happen. At least the ancient ruins are intact.

I’m also trying to talk my friend S. into going to a meeting/drinking fest tonight involving fellow journos — people we could potentially “make friends” with.

I have so few older relatives left that I’m inclined not to believe the last part of this reading — but I do have several older friends, so maybe I’ll reach out to them today and see what they have to say.

 Recently, I read an article in the Star Tribune

By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI , Associated Press 

Last update: January 16, 2010 – 4:52 PM

DAKAR, Senegal – Senegal is offering free land to Haitians wishing to “return to their origins” following this week’s devastating earthquake, which has destroyed the capital and buried thousands of people beneath rubble.

Senegal’s octogenarian President Abdoulaye Wade told a meeting of his advisers that Haitians are the sons and daughters of Africa, because the country was founded by slaves, including some believed to have come from Senegal.

“The president is offering voluntary repatriation to any Haitian that wants to return to their origin,” said Wade’s spokesman Mamadou Bemba Ndiaye late Saturday following the president’s announcement.

“Senegal is ready to offer them parcels of land — even an entire region. It all depends on how many Haitians come. If it’s just a few individuals, then we will likely offer them housing or small pieces of land. If they come en masse we are ready to give them a region,” he said.

He stressed that Wade had insisted that if a region is handed over it should be in a fertile area — not in the country’s parched deserts.

Senegal, a nation of 14 million roughly the size of South Dakota, is considered one of the most stable and developed in the sub-region. Still nearly half of working-age adults are unemployed and the country has been burdened by high food prices, frequent blackouts and spiraling energy costs.

Many have criticized Wade for being a dreamer, proposing lofty projects that do little to alleviate poverty or address endemic corruption. Others see him as a statesman who dares to have a vision for Africa.

I have watched the news coverage for hours and days after the earthquake and this is the only such coverage of this offer that I have heard of.

My question is:  Why have they not covered this on the news?  Also, have the people of Haiti been made aware of this offer?  If not, why do you think we haven’t heard more about this and what are some ways we could make more people aware of this offer?

 Please comment!    Cheryl

 11:59 pm

Hello Fire Department?  Come Quick.  There’s a Bagel Burning Down City Hall - PORTLAND, OREGON -  Have you ever read any whacky stories in the news about some minor incident that turned into a huge catastrophe?  Come on, stuff like this happens all of the time and news like this has the name of a  pimple-faced kid straight out of journalism written all over it.  Like that time those wannabe tv reality show folks called the cops because they said their kid was carried off in a cheesy home made balloon, but the little goof was really hiding out in the chicken coop until the media sniffed him out.  Similar thing happened when that fat guy from West Virginia pranced around in front of the cameras after allegedly winning the Boston Marathon, that is until they found out he was gorging himself on a bucket of wings in a bar up the street then waltzed out the door and through the finish line with wing juice all over his fat face.  Well, this one’s way better than that, only it involves a flaming pastry, some tasty dank, and the evacuation of a government building.

A case of mistaken identity over a buring bagel caused the unnecessary evacuation of Portland, Oregon’s city building earlier today.   Town employees said that City Hall emptied in a matter of minutes after firefighters kicked in the door of the break room and bum rushed what ended up being a flaming bagle left in the toaster oven. There’s no immediate word on who burned the bagel or what type of bagel it was, but one of the union guys said “You should have seen what would have been a tasty burning bagel freak everyone out.  People were running around and knocking each other over like terrorists were attacking.  It was basically a mad dash to the exit and the weak were left to burn.”  (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100128/ap_on_fe_st/us_odd_bagel_evacuation_3)

City commissioners were in a meeting at the time and debating over more lenient laws for marijuana possession and cultivation.  After the fire alarm went off they all started a mad rush to the elevator and reportedly knocked over some 50 odd city employees before making it out and toking on a celebratorial bowl in the parking lot.   The jackass who forgot the bagel in the toaster oven apologized for the interruption after the evacuation, before being fired for stupidity and for getting baked on the job.  The morale of the story?  When you got the muchies, any old flaming bagel will do.