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WHAT A WEEKEND! Snow Storm, No Electric, and a Huge Fire.

similost

similost

Rockin and Rollin....
Like many, we got another huge snow storm Wednesday... Took out trees and power lines every where. We got something like 9" in less than a day.

Took out our power for 4 days. At least I got generators and it wasn't too painful.

Then Thursday night we had a massive fire at the local general store... One one hell of a fire, and it was 15 degrees out. I don't think I've ever been so frozen and tired at 2 in the morning before.. Our pump truck was the last truck running that didn't freeze up. All the other trucks at the fire had their pumps freeze. We even ended up sucking the hydrant dry, and had to go find another to fill the tankers.. We had departments from 6 towns, and as far away as 40 miles.

Here's some video... Too bad you can't hear all the ammo and small camp stove propane tanks going off.. It sounded like a war zone for a while.

http://www.wboy.com/story/28276624/exxon-catches-fire-along-gilmer-and-lewis-county-lines

exxon%20fire.jpg
 
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Wow! Impressive fire. Did the pumpers freeze while the pumps were running or were they frozen up before y'all left the fire station? If your station is like ours, the truck bays are not heated. I've never had to fight a fire in that kind of cold and don't want to.

Dry hydrants are a bummer, especially for the homeowner. We once collapsed a city water main trying to pull water from a hydrant that couldn't supply enough.
 
Our bays are heated, and so are all the other departments. Our Engine froze while pumping, as did most of the other ones. Most the tankers froze when running for water.

I think what really ran the hydrant dry was they tried to run two water cannons at the same time along with all the other hoses coming off the main pumper at the hydrant.

The water supply in that hydrant comes from about 20 miles away. No idea where the closest pump station to it is, but I bet not close.

Oh, as far as fighting a fire in that kind of cold.. NOT fun... Every time you need to break a coupling down, you had to use spanners because they were frozen, and the second you got a little new fresh un-frozen water on your gloves, anything metal stuck to them. It wasn't fun trying to pull a spanner off one glove, while you had a spanner stuck to your other glove.. LOL.. Interesting though, a frozen glove will leave you with a nice warm hand, but if you put on a fresh pair of dry gloves, your hands get instantly cold... Or if you try and thaw out your gloves them put them back on, you're back to cold. Frozen gloves were the warmest.. go figure.
 
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Fun, fun, fun, til daddy takes the T-Bird away... Well, may as well laugh... Cryin's about the only other option, & its NEVER as much fun..
 
Yeah.. we made the most of it... Caught up on some sleep, spent time checking on neighbors, got out into the woods a bit to enjoy the beauty of the snow..

As far as the store, a lot of people were really upset about it, but they have already started to clear the site and are planning to get started rebuilding pretty soon... The owners are saying it will be bigger and better.. It was a really cool place... Anything you could want was there.. from ammo, to boots, to plumbing fittings to load binders.. You name it, they probably had it..
 
That looks insane. I hope no one was hurt. The weather is finally warming up here hope you guys are not too far behind.
 
Hey there David..

Nope. no one got hurt, other than some of us were sore for a few days from humping hoses... Then the fun part was the day after next, I had classes, which was about.. you guessed it... hoses and nozzles.. They will wear you out fast.. I'm sick of hoses.. LOL..

Warmed up pretty good yesterday. Snow is melting good... Going to get back to work on my pantry today and this week since my fingers won't be too frozen to play with the table saw.

I just wish it would dry up.. I have a lot of work I need to get done, but until some of the mud goes away, I can't do it..
 
Wow...that looks like a scene out of Rambo....good to see that your OK James...

Did you change your clocks to daylight savings time...:D
 
Oh yeah, we're on the new time.. LOL...

We're still doing fine... It's kind of amazing though.. Marcia and I seem to be more prepared for what ever gets thrown at us than most of the people that have been here all their life...

They wait for something to happen, then try and figure out how to deal with it... We make sure we're ready.

It was amazing how many people didn't have water and came to the fire house to get water because their wells wouldn't run... Most can afford a generator, but they don't... They don't stock water either... I don't get it...

The president of the VFD has a huge generator and is always out in the oil fields for work, so I stopped by his place to fill the generator for his wife.. She's older and can't lift the cans well.

Anyway, got their TV and satellite hooked to the generator, but not their well, and no water stocked.. The genny is big enough to run their well... I told her I'm going to get on her husband about that.. He of all people should know better... Crazy.. TV is more important than water...
 
Jus' an incredible scene there, simi!

I'm also glad no one was injured or killed. Try to stay warm & hopefully this winter will be a thing of the past soon for a lot of us. We haven't had any sunshine for almost three weeks.

Rome
 
similost said:
Our bays are heated, and so are all the other departments. Our Engine froze while pumping, as did most of the other ones. Most the tankers froze when running for water.

I think what really ran the hydrant dry was they tried to run two water cannons at the same time along with all the other hoses coming off the main pumper at the hydrant.

The water supply in that hydrant comes from about 20 miles away. No idea where the closest pump station to it is, but I bet not close.

Oh, as far as fighting a fire in that kind of cold.. NOT fun... Every time you need to break a coupling down, you had to use spanners because they were frozen, and the second you got a little new fresh un-frozen water on your gloves, anything metal stuck to them. It wasn't fun trying to pull a spanner off one glove, while you had a spanner stuck to your other glove.. LOL.. Interesting though, a frozen glove will leave you with a nice warm hand, but if you put on a fresh pair of dry gloves, your hands get instantly cold... Or if you try and thaw out your gloves them put them back on, you're back to cold. Frozen gloves were the warmest.. go figure.
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Oh, sounds like fun. I never thought about tools freezing to gloves.

Around here our hydrants can't keep up with one water cannon, certainly not with two. We know because we tried once. Fortunately nothing in Washington is that far from the city water tower. Between shuttling water and what the city mains can supply we can keep up with a pumper if we use the cannon sparingly.
 
I have a fairly improper generator rig-up here, but I can definitely run the well from it. It produces water that isn't really fit to drink, but it makes things flush. We keep drinking water on hand, anywhere from 5 - 30 gallons, depending on when our delivery is. Running the TV and not having a well is just silly IMO. Water is far more important than Judge Judy or whatever other nonsense is on.


No hydrants where I am either. Our FD has a tanker but they just fill out of the river most of the time. For many places in the township, they wouldn't even need to run from the tanker. We've got enough riverfront that they can just pitch a suction hose in and run the pumper.
 
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