What can we as first responders do to help spread the word about prevention of these kinds of events?

Well, first of all, we can model good safe practices ourselves. Whether we know it or not, other folks watch what we do and how we do it, whether at home or on an emergency scene, especially the kids. Take a moment and ask yourself before every project if you have taken all the precautions needed to insure a safe outcome.

Secondly, take a look at this website link for some solid prevention ideas for all sorts of common everyday activities that are known to have risks. A little prevention goes a long way. It wasn’t too long ago when seat belts were considered a little utilized option, yet today, most of us wouldn’t think about driving without one. That same story can be true for these other common risks, if we just take the time to think about what we are doing before we do it.

Here’s hoping you have a safe and productive summer season!

firefighters by nature never want to tell you that they are tired or not feeling well, so they ignore the signs and symptoms of duress until it is too late. The new technology described here will allow real-time monitoring of each individual firefighter for a wide variety of indicators. This link describes what I believe will go down as a major player in the fight against firefighter fatalities. I cannot wait for this to be commercially viable.

Well today I received a forwarded email from Assistant Chief Tom Schmitz, who was on that scene, explaining that the person has made a remarkable recovery and a lot of the credit goes to the responders from the Fire and Police Departments for their excellent execution of CPR techniques during the whole event. Praise also goes out to the medics from HCMC for their excellent skills and dedication in serving this fellow as well.

Proof that fact is always stranger than fiction, the person that was saved happens to be related to one of the Doctors at HCMC. A lot of times when responders get to a heart attack victim they have been down so long that the prognosis is not too good. In this case everything lined up perfectly and this remarkable outcome happened. Nice job by everybody that helped out that day! It truly takes a team effort to get these kinds of outcomes.

One of the great innovations that has been developed is using a tower truck, like our Tower 21 to create a quick way to decon a lot of people in a short amount of time. This system can be set up in about 15 minutes and can handle hundreds of people per hour, that need a quick decon process because they were exposed to some sort of chemical that needs to be rinsed off before they can be treated medically. The pictures below show just how simple and yet effective this process is. All you need is a tower truck, a good water supply and a big tarp (40′ x 80′ in this case). Once in place the people needing decon just walk slowly through the tunnel formed by the tarp and water is showered down from above by nozzles placed along the ladder device.

Eden Prairie and Hopkins Fire Departments go back a long way, in fact Hopkins provided a lot of the fire coverage to Eden Prairie before Eden Prairie formed it’s own Fire Department in 1967. Having a trusted partner like the Hopkins Fire Department makes our ability to deal with Haz Mat incidents just that much more effective, and that is good for our citizens and our firefighters alike.

Below are pictures of the large “Tool box” truck and trailer that Hopkins Fire brings to Haz Mat incidents, they have stuff!

The important thing to remember here, is that this fire department had a lot of resources on-hand at this event so that they were able to deal with this near tragic explosion. If they had not had the amount of apparatus on scene that they did, the outcome for the firefighters, and the civilians that they evacuated before the explosion, could have been much worse. There is a good reason why the fire service brings a lot of resources to emergency scenes, and this is just more proof that it makes sense and changes outcomes for civilians and firefighters.

Having said that, however, you will never be able to plan for every eventuality and our plans for the pandemic are based on an “All Hazard” approach to dealing with emergencies. We have used other events within our city to try out our plans for dealing with staffing shortages in critical areas, the kinds of shortages that would most certainly occur in a pandemic. We have learned lessons from those staffing models and are aware of the issues that go with them.

Our city website has links for our citizens to go to to keep up with this developing story. As of this blog post the situation is not changing too rapidly, but in the world of Emergency Management it is best to always stay alert and keep in a perpetual state of planning and refining plans as the situation evolves.

So take heart all you worry warts, America’s future seems to be in good hands, from what I saw in Moorhead.

Below is a picture taken on Monday, March 30th of a dike building effort in process. Note all of the younger generation folks hard at work.

If the team deploys, I will be sure to keep updates and pictures posted to this blog as time permits.

My message here is to leave stove tops clear of anything except the pot or pan on the burner that is in use. by taking this basic housekeeping strategy, accidents can be avoided and the loss that goes with them.

This year Eden Prairie firefighters also competed in a challenge with other fire departments for the first time. They take the top four times from each department and Eden Prairie finished 4^th out of 9 departments (Eden Prairie’s top 4 times were each right around 8 minutes 20 seconds, or 17 seconds per floor). Minneapolis, Des Moines, and Eagan finished 1, 2 and 3. To put it in perspective, Minneapolis climbed at a rate of about 12 seconds per floor in gear.