Emergency Plan Exercise 2011

Baltimore Washington International Airport Emergency Plan Exercise (EPLEX) 2011 Saturday, May 7th, 2011 Purpose: EPLEX provides BWI airport and its mutual aid partners the opportunity to test and evaluate the Airport Emergency Plan (AEP), departmental procedures, personnel, and equipment to identify weaknesses, procedural gaps, and best practices.

Scenario: On Saturday mourning, May 7th at 0900L, Jet Blue Fit DC-10-30 while departing Runway 33L, en route to LGB, sustained catastrophic engine failure to #3 engine, causing aircraft to veer off RWY surface and rest on grass/pavement surfaces West of RWY15R-33L, South of RWY 04-22. Fire and smoke is visible coming from the right side engine/wing. 

By the time the first fire unit arrives on scene, the fire has already started to penetrate and spread into the interior of the tail section. (25) Passengers will succumb to smoke inhalation and burns in the interior of the aircraft. of the (75) persons who escape the aircraft, 915) will suffer moderate to severe smoke inhalation. When triaged, the survivors will consist of (15) "Immediate," (23) "Delayed," and (37) "Minor/Uninjured. (10) of the Uninjured are covered in Jet-A (fuel) and will need to be decontaminated.

Goals:

Meet the FAA's Airport Certification Program, Part 139, requirement to hold a full-scale Emergency Planning  Exercise (EPLEX) every three years.
Test BWI AEP.

Test the internal and external communication necessary to respond to an e emergency at the airport. 

My Reflections as a Player (crash victim with lacerations and a broken arm):

Note: For comparison, here is the same emergency exercise from 2008.

1. Social media is EVERYWHERE. Victims, responders, American Red Cross workers, BWI Airport employees. MD state troopers, EMTs, firefighters, "family and friends" all players and all emergency management professionals at the exercise...EVERYONE had social media (smart phones with links to Twitter, Twitpic, Facebook, YoiuTube, etc.) available...and used it.

For example, there years ago I played a six-year old child with any eyeball hanging out. The guy with the problem eyeball this year took photos of his injury all day and sent it via text to dozens of people.  That's the new world we live in.

Here is a website to help you deal with that reality. Dealing with Social Media in a Crisis

In the real world and in exercises, be ready for your event to go viral...fast. With millions of smart phones out there with cameras and video recorders, much of what you say and do will end up on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and others.

Only three years ago I wrote an article called Free Web Safety & Emergency Tools for The American Civil Defense Association (TACDA). In it, I presented the case for first responders, emergency management professionals, and policy makers to use free social media, like Twitter, Facebook, You Tube to mitigate, plan for, respond to, and recover from events. I stated:
"All these social media tools are even more powerful
when used together. The new social media will revolutionize your work world."
Judging by the number of "victims" at this exercise who were instantly sharing pictures, videos and words with the larger world, this is a reality that must be taken seriously in all emergency planning these days.
2. We're getting better at emergency management. I've been in and around this field for about 30 years. Many areas that were once haphazard (triage comes to mind) are now better organized and coordinated. The first responders have always been great at providing assistance, but now they have technology and software tools that, when used wisely, save more lives. 
For example, a large truck with dozens of high tech stretchers was able to preposition using sophisticated software that connect it to a base mobile communications unit (that looked like something out of Star Trek with all the antennas and satellite dishes).
3. It's all about people. I heard a dozen human stories too long to record here. The technology, as great as it is, must never blind us to the humans behind it, in front of it, using it, and having it used on them.
For example, one women I got to know in the moulage room ended up being a severely injured "victim."
She played the part, very well. When she would scream, many participants and professionals went to her help. Imagine that.

The power of a scream.

When she continued to scream at St. Agne's Hospital emergency room, they took it for a few minutes and then were about to give her a sedative. With all that treatment technology in that modern medical room, her screaming got their attention very quickly. It's still about humans, and their behavior, before, during, and after an event.

Thanks to the Emergency Management Pros
As always, my thanks to the men and women who do this for a living. I was only a bit player. As such, I had the fun without the responsibility.

When I saw how seriously they approached their tasks, I was filled with admiration and pride. They're good. Very good. And we should never, ever take them for granted.So me and my family to them and their family's...THANKS!

Happy St. Pat's Day 2010

When I went to Holy Angels Grade School in West Oak Lane, the common saying around St. Patrick's Day was: "There are only two kinds of people in the world: the Irish, and those who want to be Irish." 

It was that kind of humorous bravado that kept the Irish alive through 800 years of slavery and slaughter.

For a quick review of that slavery and slaughter, see The Immortal Irishman by Timothy Egan. He captures the Irish condition using the life of Thomas Francis Meagher.
Here are some photos, Irish dancing, and Eamon playing violin from a St. Patrick's party at my parish, St. Michael the Archangel. 

We raised $100,000 to bring down the cost of the mortgage on the new education wing. Civilization is a beautiful thing.
The Irish step dancers are from the Teelin Irish Dance Company. These young ones are stunning. 

They are out of Columbia, MD. 

These are my people...and I love them.

This is the poem I wrote for Eamon when he was a fetus inside his mother's womb. He is the 15-year old playing violin in the video above. I wanted him to know the struggles of his Irish ancestors via poetry.

Eamon Patrick’s Poem

  

Kicking your mother

from inside the liquid

universe of the womb

 

I feel so crippled

and broken

when considering

I have so much to teach you

and only the remaining

lifetime to do so.

 

It is hopeless, really,

except these two gems

that came down from a long, long,

line of men and women who survived

centuries of Viking invasions

whose barbarity was only surpassed

by the neighbor invader

who considered genocide

by the rule of law

such a jolly good adventure

and stole all the food

in the very middle

of the famine of all famines.

 

Through it all,

your ancestors survived

tenaciously creative

and green as moss

on the back of a stone

on the gentle Shannon river

and these two gems skip across

that great river to the Delaware

where once, when wondering

of ancestral roots I asked my father,

“Dad, what is it to be American?”

 

“Work.” “What?” I asked.

“Work.” he repeated. 

“Your grandfather worked.

I worked.  You’ll work.”

“That’s all?” “That’s all.” he answered.

  

“Then what is it to be Irish?”

“Hilarity.” He didn’t miss a beat again.

“Hilarity.  You gotta make ‘em laugh.”

So, there it is Eamon Patrick. 

 

If God takes me

before I get to teach you

all you need to know,

let these two words suffice: 

work and hilarity.

 

Work and hilarity

saved your people

over centuries of warfare, pestilence,

invasion, slavery, defeat, and famine

and eventually defeated

the greatest power on earth

so that I could write you this poem.

 

Work and hilarity

can carry you to the universe

and to the other planets

and when you find

a particularly hard planet,

name it “Work,”

and when you find

an especially funny planet,

name it “Hilarity.”

 

No matter what the planet or year,

work and hilarity are in your genes

as am I, and all of my dreams.

  

 

Bruce Curley

Germantown, MD

February 10, 1996

Eamon Curley Violin "Thais" by Jules Massenet

Pumpkin Chuckin Corn Maze Happiness

The story is told that when in 1776 Thomas Jefferson was writing the Declaration of Independence and got stuck on "Life, liberty, and ...and" a band of Mummer's strutted past and he quickly scrolled "the pursuit of happiness." into the document...and American life.
Although much forgotten these days, the Founding Fathers were absolutely brilliant. 

For proof of just how brilliant they were, find a link to their sayings here.

There is pursuit of happiness beyond pumpkin chuckin and corn mazes, but an exercise and fun-filled night at Lawyers Moonlight Maze ranks up there.
And firing pumpkins from an air compressed cannon...how great is that!

I went there with my wife and several parents whose children play on my son's team at South Carroll High School. 

For $5 to enter, it provides a lot of fun.
Contact: 240 315 8133, 13003 Creagerstown Road, Thurmont, MD 21788

The corn maze is HUGE (7.5 miles of trails covering 42 acres)! What's fun is that you wander around with a simple map and the corn is so high and the lanes so confusing you get lost over and over. In the process, you laugh and cut up with the other parents about the antics of your kids.

Eamon's best friend's parents told a good one about taking away his phone and gaming computer only to walk up the stairs to see his TV out in the hallway, too.
Ah, teens...they were lost somewhere else and found us three hours later.
They change the target theme every year. This year's theme was Iron Man, which is what you see standing against the horizon in the photos below. Staying on theme, the Iron Man movie plays at night on the straw bale screen.

The campfire teepee has a large fire where you can warm yourself up after a cold walk through the corn maze.
Recharge your energy with the kettle corn, warm apple cider, and hot chocolate.
The pursuit of happiness, as our Founding Father's knew, is grand!