I first heard about the TWA Flight 800 crash off Long Island, NY, on my beeper minutes after it happened. As badly as this incident or any similar disaster affects family, friends and rescuers, you probably never figure that you will know somebody involved. That wasn’t the case for me this time. Little did I know that my own borough administrator, to whom I reported as fire chief, was aboard that flight with his wife.
You can’t help feeling for the victims and their families but an incident of this magnitude reaches around the world. The complicated recovery effort following this incident brought together an immense group of people — the public, government officials and the military. Two Firehouse® writers were involved with the initial recovery efforts. Suffolk County, NY, firefighters who endured the wildfires last year were right in the middle of this disaster. Let’s all hope for better days ahead.
On a similar subject, Dave Fenton relates the special needs that an aircraft emergency can require of EMS; see page 32. After the ValuJet crash in Florida, we sent Contributing Editor Joe Louderback to look into the testing and development of the “black box” recorders on aircraft. This is what investigators are always eager to recover after an incident. You can read all about their stringent testing procedures on page 28.
While we were hosting the Firehouse Expo in Baltimore, MD, I had just gone to bed after watching some of the Olympics. Again, my beeper alerted me to the fact that a bomb had exploded in Atlanta, GA. Major planning had gone into the fire protection and potential rescue needs during the Olympics. Additional manpower on Atlanta fire apparatus, several Urban Search and Rescue Teams from around the country and additional volunteer local manpower gave Atlanta almost three times as many personnel on duty than during a normal time in case anything happened.
Continuing our series on explosives, Mike Pickett describes and explains what firefighters need to know about triggering mechanisms of explosive devices, bomb threats and bomb searches. A timely, must-read story which can be found on page 36.
This month, we introduce a new series on customer service by Phoenix, AZ, Fire Chief Alan Brunacini, a Firehouse contributing editor. As always, he’s witty and right on the mark, and if you follow what the chief has to say, this series may just improve your relationship with the public.
This month, we also cover activity in the Las Vegas/Clark County, NV area. As if a rapidly growing population, high heat and plenty of fires were not enough, you can find an interesting fire protection problem on page 50 — the Stratosphere, the tallest building west of the Mississippi, has been erected on the Las Vegas Strip. A tremendous amount of code enforcement and pre-fire planning to protect the structure and its occupants from fire has been undertaken. It’s a sight to see.
