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Los Angeles County, Los Angeles City, Glendale, Burbank, Compton, Oxnard, Rialto, Bakersfield and Fresno Fire Departments participate in live fire drills for their explorers as part of the 2014 Disaster Drills at Del Valle.
This year the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) turns its focus for the International Day
for Disaster Reduction on 13 October on some one billion people around the world who live with some form of
disability.
Learn more: www.unisdr.org/2013/iddr
Los Angeles County, Los Angeles City, Glendale, Burbank, Compton, Oxnard, Rialto, Bakersfield and Fresno Fire Departments participate in live fire drills for their explorers as part of the 2014 Disaster Drills at Del Valle.
The Disaster
On the evening of 25th October 1960 a number of barges were making their way up river from Avonmouth to Sharpness. Amongst them were two vessels operated by John Harker Ltd. of Knottingley, Yorkshire. The WASTDALE H had been built locally at Sharpness Shipyard in 1951. She was a tanker barge and was carrying a load of petroleum. The ARKENDALE H had been built by Richards Ironworks of Lowestoft in 1937 as a dumb (unpowered) tanker barge. She had been converted to a motor barge in 1948 and was later lengthened. Her cargo was Britoleum black oil, a heavy oil which required her to be fitted with heating coils in her tanks to keep the oil liquid.
The barges hit thick fog near Berkeley Power Station and the strong incoming tide was running at 5 knots making it difficult to manoeuvre the vessels for their approach to the lock at Sharpness. Both barges were swept past the lock entrance and the found themselves by the old, disused dock entrance further upstream. The two barges came abreast and the skippers found it impossible to separate them. Whilst they struggled to break them apart they drifted yet further upstream until the port bow of the WASTDALE H hit pier 17 of the bridge. The bridge shook with the impact and the WASTDALE H turned onto her port side and began to sink. As pier 17 gave way under the pressure the two spans it supported fell onto the barges causing the WASTDALE H’s petroleum cargo to ignite and explode. The ARKENDALE H’s cargo of black oil was also ruptured and with the help of the petroleum it too ignited leaving the entire expanse of the river blazing. The two barges drifted on up river before grounding on the Ridge Sandbank. Skipper George Thompson of the ARKENDALE H managed to make it ashore. His engineer Jack Cooper also survived but not before he received a severe back injury sustained by an encounter with the still-rotating propeller of the sinking ARKENDALE H. Skipper James Dew of the WASTDALE H was the only other survivor. The other five crew members were missing.
The next morning the smouldering wrecks of the two barges were left high and dry on the sand with the WASTDALE H standing on her port side. On the following tide she settled back to en even keel. Attempts were made to pump out and search both vessels for the missing crew members but their inaccessible position made the job difficult. All five bodies were later found at various locations along the Severn. On 30th October 1960 the Army blew holes in the bow and stern of both barges to prevent them refloating. They remain there to this day, submerged at high tide and exposed at low tide.
On the night of the disaster the Fairfields workers engaged on the strengthening of the bridge decided to take an early meal break in order to listen to the Henry Cooper v Karl Muller boxing match on the wireless at Severn Bridge Station. Had they not done so the death toll would have been considerably worse as the span they were working on was one of the two that fell.
Within a month of the disaster the Western Region of British Railways had prepared an outline plan to repair the bridge. Pier 16 would be repaired and a new concrete pier would be constructed to replace pier 17. A single, welded mild steel span would then be placed across the top, supported in the middle by the new pier. The projected cost for this was £85,000.
It was found that pier 16 was significantly damaged and was leaning towards the Sharpness bank. It was therefore decided to erect a timber trestle beneath span 15-16 and the contract to do this was awarded to Peter Lind & Co. Ltd.
The bridge suffered further mishap on 17th February 1961 when the tanker barge BP EXPLORER capsized and struck pier 20 causing a further £12,740 worth of damage.
Peter Lind & Co. Ltd. hired the twin floating crane TWEEDLEDUM & TWEEDLEDEE to assist with the erection of the trestle. On the 14th April 1961 the TWEEDLEDUM & TWEEDLEDEE broke away from its moorings on a flood tide and drifted into the bridge damaging the dolphins on pier 20. The crane jib also struck the underside of the bridge. This time the damage was estimated at £6,000."
Elizabeth Kammer describes damage to her home that has been gutted to the wall studs after historic flooding in Denham Springs, La. Kammer describes herself as a "two-striper," having lost homes to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005 and the recent flooding in Denham Springs. She is a member of First United Methodist Church in Denham Springs. Photo by Mike DuBose, UMNS
Disaster Financial Assistance (DFA) is available for eligible British Columbians in southeast and central areas of the province who were affected by flooding between April 27 and May 16, 2023.
Learn more: news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2023EMCR0030-000748
Nov. 1, 2012 — The Emergency Operations Center is staffed during a disaster like Hurricane Sandy by a FDA Incident Management Group comprised of personnel who are expert in a variety of public health and regulatory areas. They work with FDA Incident Management Teams in the field to monitor the impact of the storm and help shape the agency’s response.
To learn more read the FDA Voice blog.
FDA photo by Michael J. Ermarth
Dear JetBlue Customers,
We are sorry and embarrassed. But most of all, we are deeply sorry.
Last week was the worst operational week in JetBlue's seven year history. As a customer scheduled to be on one of our flights during this period, we know we let you down. Following the severe winter ice storm in the Northeast, we subjected you to unacceptable delays, flight cancellations, lost baggage, and other major inconveniences. The storm disrupted the movement of aircraft, and, more importantly, disrupted the movement of JetBlue's pilot and inflight crewmembers who were depending on those planes to get them to the airports where they were scheduled to serve you. With the busy President's Day weekend upon us, rebooking opportunities were scarce and hold times at 1-800-JETBLUE were unacceptably long or not even available, further hindering our recovery efforts.
Words cannot express how truly sorry we are for the anxiety, frustration and inconvenience that you experienced. This is especially saddening because JetBlue was founded on the promise of bringing humanity back to air travel and making the experience of flying happier and easier for everyone who chooses to fly with us. We know we failed to deliver on this promise to you last week.
We have begun implementing immediate corrective steps to regain your confidence in us as part of a comprehensive plan to provide better and more timely information to you, more tools and resources for our crewmembers and improved procedures for handling operational difficulties in the future. We are confident, as a result of these actions, that JetBlue will emerge as a more reliable and even more customer responsive airline than ever before.
Most importantly, we have published the JetBlue Airways Customer Bill of Rights—our official commitment to you of how we will handle operational interruptions going forward—including details of compensation. I have a video message to share with you about this industry leading action.
You deserved better—a lot better—from us last week. Nothing is more important than regaining your trust and all of us here hope you will give us the opportunity to once again welcome you onboard and provide you the positive JetBlue Experience you have come to expect from us.
Sincerely,
David Neeleman
Founder and CEO
JetBlue Airways
P.S. We pledge to keep you informed with more details about the implementation of our improved recovery plans in the coming weeks. There is no need to reply to this email about compensation inquiries. We will be contacting you directly by March 15.
Plan of workings in the Four Feet seam on west side of the Universal colliery prepared for the Inquiry into the explosion of 14th. October 1913 when 439 men and boys were killed.
This was the worst disaster in British mining history.
Lancaster downcast shaft highlighted bottom right.
The black highlight indicates the likely source of gas emission & ignition point by an electrical spark as determined by the Inquiry.
The red highlight indicates the alternative source of gas emission and the lamp-station as the alternative ignition point by an open flame lamp - as concluded by one member of the Inquiry.
(N.B. all graphics are mine)
Use "All Sizes" icon to enlarge.
Are you ready?
There was an island-wide Emergency Preparedness Drill on the day we visited Vashon Island.
This is the tap on my rainwater tank...showing a mere drizzle of water. While working in the courtyard yesterday I was distracted and came inside ,forgetting that I had the rainwater hose running on a shrub; came out this morning to an almost empty tank. We are on water restrictions and can only use town water on the garden 3 afternoon a week and then only between 4.30 and 5.30pm by which time it is now becoming too cool for both the potplants and for me.
Leicestershire, April, 1898, Report number C.-9060. 35 dead.
Early in the morning of Tuesday the 19th of April 1898 a fire broke out in the main intake of the Old Main or Upper Seam of the Whitwick Colliery whereby thirty-five persons lost their lives, of these persons the bodies of only nine have been recovered. The bodies of the remaining victims are still in the mine.
A fall had occurred about half way between No. 94 and No. 95 road ends, and at both roads there had been gob-fires. It was also in a part where all the coal had been worked away, and the strata above was more or less broken. The fires at the bottom of old No. 94 road had been quiescent for a long time, but the fires at old No. 95 and the immediate vicinity had given considerable trouble, and were a few yards beyond the place where the heavy fall occurred.
It will thus be seen that the part where the fire took place is about half-way between the junction of the roads where gob-fires existed, and had been dammed off.
I am of opinion that the heat from these gob-fires would materially assist in developing a gob-fire in any strata favourably situated, or inclined to develop spontaneous combustion, and that the area of their thermal activity would be in proportion to the broken nature of the strata, or the conductivity of the rocks forming such strata.
Report by Arthur H. Stokes, H.M. Inspector of Mines.
Plan scanned and pieced together to remake a copy of the original borrowed from a collection of disaster reports
I read this on the [CNN website about the stricken nuclear facilities in Japan](http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/15/japan.nuclear.reactors/?hpt=T1) :
"There is still a very high risk of further radioactive material coming out," Prime Minister Naoto Kan said, asking people to remain calm.
About 200,000 people living within a 12.4-mile radius of the plant already had been evacuated.
Authorities also banned flights over the area and evacuated most workers from the plant.
Those who remained behind continued a last-ditch effort to cool reactors with seawater to prevent a wider environmental and public health catastrophe.
High levels of radiation led the crew to abandon the plant control room Tuesday night, Kyodo News reported, citing plant owner Tokyo Electric Power Company.
"Their situation is not great," said David Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University. "It's pretty clear that they will be getting very high doses of radiation. There's certainly the potential for lethal doses of radiation. They know it, and I think you have to call these people heroes." "
.......... I read it and felt sad. So sad for the people of Japan . So sad for those nuclear workers left behind at the plant risking all...... possibly sacrificing their health...... maybe even their own lives for the good of others.
Such a terrible scenario ........ Such heroism.
It reminded me immediately that I had once met with some of the brave few who at the time still survived the clean up and the attempt to 'make safe' at the [Chernobyl nuclear plant](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster).
They were there after the world's worse nuclear disaster had left the plant spewing radiation because a huge explosion had destroyed the containment and sent nuclear material into the sky. [The "Liquidators"](http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,1976212,00.html) as they were know were involved in the construction of a sarcophagus that encased the stricken plant in concrete......... they also attempted to clean up the area of nuclear material.
They paid a [high price for their heroism](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article707924.ece).
The firefighters first to arrive on the scene tried to put out the blaze....... their heroism saved the fires from reaching the other reactors..... but the men were exposed to huge doses of radiation. Many died rapidly and were honored as 'Heroes of the Revolution' their lead lined grave even though they are buried under a huge thickness of concrete is said to be the most radioactive place in Moscow.
[The Liquidators](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8oVzYCBqNA) came immediately afterwards to try and 'make safe'........... all were exposed to unsafe doses of radiation many were still alive years later when I met them ......... all those I met were ill.
Such a terrible story of error and ineptitude and of such [heroism and sacrifice](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juE4II9-hZ8)........ I hoped it was peculiar to the old Soviet Union.......... Sadly it may not be.
Cheers Jez XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
My wife and I took a drive to the Crows Nest Pass in Southern Alberta for the day.
This picture was taken at the Hillcrest Cemetery. The history of this area involves 3 disasters in the early 1900's.
A previous picture posted is of one of the many graves in this cemetery.
1903 - Frank Slide at Turtle Mountain where there was an avalanche killing many in the town of Frank.
1910 - Bellevue Mine Explosion.
1914 - Hillcrest Mine Disaster.
Another page from Mess: The Manual of Accidents and Mistakes.
Instructions:
This is a disaster area. Fill every square inch of this page with stuff.
Filled with bits (of packaging, etc ...) that were destined for the trash.
The anthropomorphic grapes make me giggle every time.
To see more of my completed pages from Mess: The Manual of Accidents and Mistakes, please visit my blog:
I was tickled when I noticed the contrast between the happy/pretty Sharon image on the back of her cell phone and the faux injured/stressed Sharon in person, who was a fellow victim at the airport disaster drill.
After make-up professionals created our fake wounds, sprayed us with fake soot and sprinkled us with dirt, we volunteers rode in a bus to a grassy field next to a fake plane crash site.
During the ride, Sharon mentioned that she had retired early from Gulfstream, and it was the best thing she had every done in her life. She danced away from her office that day and never looked back.
Learn more about my airport disaster drill experience via my blog.
Learn more about the 100 Strangers Project and see pictures taken by other photographers.
This photo was taken by Kristine K. Stevens, who sold her house, quit her job and traveled around the world. To learn more about her adventure, read "If Your Dream Doesn't Scare You, It Isn't Big Enough: A Solo Journey Around the World.".
Available in print, Kindle and Nook formats.