Public safety in a raging snowstorm:
    We got our first, gentle "warning" snow of the season on Tuesday
    night.  You know those nice, crisp blowings of tiny snow flakes
    that lodge against the curb and nestle inside the curls of blowing
    leaves?
    Unfortunately, that was immediately inundated by our worst snow
    in 12 years.  Back in 1984 we got an ice storm that left us
    without power for a week and brought down nearly every power line
    in town.
    Last night we lost power, but it was back on this morning.  Oddly,
    though the phone lines are laying in the yard (under the remainder
    of the limbs which survived 1984), the phones are still working.
    It was a scannist's heaven.  My scanner almost never left the fire
    frequency.  All afternoon and evening EVERY truck was out putting
    out tree fires, responding to power line down calls, and there
    were even a couple of medical calls and house fire calls (two
    adjacent houses).
    I was amazed at the total lack of coordination after just an
    hour or so, yet they kept their professionalism and were able to
    handle calls fairly quickly, even though they had lost any semblance
    of order.  Trucks were running in each other's districts and I
    rarely heard where one truck was able to return to its own station.
    They ended up refueling (both their trucks and themselves) at
    whatever station happened to be handy.  There was even an
    accident in front of one station.  Fortunately the roads weren't
    very bad.  They even found time for a bit of on-air humor as a
    couple of trucks found themselves directly under sagging power
    lines.  I missed the first part of the comment, but the dispatcher
    came back with an obvious laugh and said, "Well, I would suggest
    that you move out from under them."  "Engine 4 -- Yes sir."  Then
    a quieter "Pumper 7 has decided to also move" from the second
    company on the scene.
    I had not prepared this year with alternate power sources for my
    scanners, so was stuck using my handheld PRO-51 with a telescoping
    VHF TV antenna.  I was able to hear all of the fire trucks as well
    as the dispatchers, and finally turned it off after about 8 hours
    of listening and I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer.
    Looks like a war zone out there this morning.  We've got a lot of
    tree limbs down, but the power lines are still up.  It was
    interesting last night sitting on top of a hill watching all the
    power transformers blowing out.  It looked like one of those
    Star Trek photon torpedo attacks.  The whole sky lighted up due
    to the snow, which scattered the light.
 * 1st 2.00 #567 * Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.
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