[HN Gopher] "San Jose Fire had an impossibly complex incident sc...
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"San Jose Fire had an impossibly complex incident scene.." (2019)
Author : mik3y
Score : 73 points
Date : 2021-08-15 21:36 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.facebook.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.facebook.com)
| [deleted]
| poopsmithe wrote:
| Is there a version of this that doesn't require a FB account?
| yojo wrote:
| It's mostly text, though there are some pictures at the end.
| Here you go:
|
| _Bruce Dembecki August 12, 2019
|
| San Jose Fire had an impossibly complex incident scene that
| will be the subject of countless Battalion Chief exams in the
| future...
|
| An SUV collided with a large bendy bus, pushing the bus off the
| road and into a high voltage power pole, which came down on top
| of the bus. Power lines are down across the bus and the SUV,
| and the streets.
|
| At the fire station next door there is a large bang and the
| power goes out... crews looking to find out what happened
| discovered they couldn't open the apparatus bay doors...
|
| Switching to manual mode the doors at the fire station are
| opened, but they discover they can't get their equipment out
| because the power lines are across the apron of the fire
| station.
|
| Manually open the back doors... the electric gate at the rear
| of the station is closed... plans for power loss at the station
| involve manually exiting through the front of the apparatus
| bay, time was lost as crews figured out how to open the back
| gate...
|
| Meanwhile the 11 people on the bus can't leave the bus because
| of the power lines... but the SUV has burst into flames, and
| the fire is spreading to the bus... passengers can't stay on
| the bus because of the fire... they can't get off because of
| the electricity...
|
| Power remains a problem and fire crews are able to get a 1.5"
| line on the SUV from 30' away... the SUV fuel tank starts
| dripping, the fuel ignites... the water stream from 30' away
| pushes the burning fuel under the SUV... to the bus...
|
| The bus is a diesel electric hybrid with 900V batteries on the
| roof, smashed from above by the power pole, being attacked from
| below by fire... fire crews can not fight the bus fire until a
| bus mechanic arrives with information on how deal with the
| batteries... the bus mechanic arrives, but can't go near the
| bus until PG&E neutralizes the power from their lines...
|
| Somehow, everyone was removed from the bus and there were no
| serious injuries.
|
| Hours later the major traffic artery remains completely closed
| as PGE deals with the power... when they are done fire will
| look at the bus and the hazmat team will analyze the damage to
| the bus electrical storage systems... eventually the bus and
| SUV will be removed and the scene turned over to PG&E to repair
| the power system before the road can be reopened...
|
| Elapsed time 4:03:00 and counting, we still can't get at the
| battery systems on the bus...
|
| It's going to be a long afternoon - did I mention it's 98
| degrees outside?_
| jay_m wrote:
| Not quite clear why this was flagged to death, but I vouched
| for it as it seemed a reasonable response to the request.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| It's a blatant copyright violation. And I don't have an FB
| account and was able to read the article just fine.
| bigcorp-slave wrote:
| How deep up corporate America's ass do you have to be to
| object to someone posting the text of a Facebook post?
|
| How will Facebook ever survive without you to defend it?
| [deleted]
| MBCook wrote:
| Odd. I read it on my phone and didn't need an account (don't
| have one).
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I put the PDF on Drive. Rather than incur the wrath of FB's
| lawyers, I will manually grant access to anyone who asks (until
| I get tired of it), and not make it generally available.
|
| https://drive.google.com/file/d/1r7BQRrao8Za5DjLhN7WXJxHs6jw...
| terramex wrote:
| https://pastebin.com/jCvYnT1e
| [deleted]
| chrisfosterelli wrote:
| I don't know anything about urban fire fighting. It seems like
| the primary block to rescuing the civilians is that the power is
| still on, and they had to wait for the power to be off. That
| makes me think that firefighters, if they can't already, should
| be able to either 1) turn off power on site, or 2) easily contact
| someone who can do so remotely.
| davidbanham wrote:
| We can easily contact someone but they can't do it remotely.
| The power company needs to come on scene. Isolating power is a
| lot more complex than it used to be because of solar
| installations. We can never be sure that every building's solar
| is properly isolated from the grid.
|
| In these cases where people need to be evacuated from a vehicle
| that's live due to power lines there are protocols for doing
| so, it's just more risky. We need to ensure they jump from the
| vehicle so they're never touching the vehicle and the ground
| simultaneously. We also need to get them to shuffle to make
| sure there's no step potential between their feet. Neither is
| easy to guarantee with a member of the public probably
| panicking.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I had no idea. Are there more protocols for live vehicles?
| Just so I know what to do!
| chrisfosterelli wrote:
| Very interesting. I hadn't considered the challenges solar
| could introduce to isolating power. Thanks for the answer.
| ljm wrote:
| There's a similar problem with people using male-to-male
| cords (suicide cords) on their generators too? Wire a
| portable generator into your house and now it's pumping out
| electricity.
| pinewurst wrote:
| (2019)
| Cyberdog wrote:
| Also, ..., not .. or .... (or ... for that matter if you're not
| using ASCII or something).
|
| Yes, this really does bug me.
| secondcoming wrote:
| > Switching to manual mode the doors at the fire station are
| opened, but they discover they can't get their equipment out
| because the power lines are across the apron of the fire station.
|
| Why couldn't the fire trucks just drive over the wires? They'd be
| insulated, no?
| rossdavidh wrote:
| If you hit a bus hard enough to knock it over, even given that
| you were driving an SUV, you were going too fast in town, it
| seems to me.
| toast0 wrote:
| I don't see that the bus was knocked over. In the photos, the
| bus is upright and there was no mention of it tipping. It got
| pushed off the road, and a power pole was knocked over.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Each accident is different. The wreckage of the SUV doesn't
| look like it hit all that hard. It struck the left front corner
| of the bus. In doing so it may have pushed the wheel, or caused
| the driver/steering wheel to move sideways. Either could cause
| the bus to briefly drive itself off the road more so than being
| directly pushed by the SUV. The bus does seem to have been
| moving at the time of impact.
| jhayward wrote:
| It is pretty common in HGV accidents that a blow against one
| of the steer tires will break the steering on that side and
| result in loss of control.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| That depends, batteries on top might make it top heavy and much
| more likely to roll over...
| Symbiote wrote:
| Presumably the buses still have to pass the "tilt test", even
| with the batteries. (Are there more batteries underneath?)
|
| [2] says single deck buses in Hong Kong must be able to tilt
| 35deg without tipping.
|
| [1] https://www.millbrook.co.uk/services/vehicle-and-
| component/d...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt_test_(vehicle_safety_t
| est...
| andyxor wrote:
| Microservices in action
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Thanks for a good laugh.
| neolog wrote:
| I don't see why they can't just walk out the front door of the
| bus. No power lines are near it.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I just walked past a SJ fire station with my dog yesterday, and
| had a nice visit with a firefighter sitting outside. I'll have to
| ask them about this next time I see one.
|
| This station doesn't have a backdoor, I don't think.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Why are these local power lines up in the air on such low poles?
| Shouldn't they be buried when in an urban environment? I've only
| ever seen power lines up in the air when crossing open country,
| and then 50m or so up in the air.
| c54 wrote:
| The California Bay Area is earthquake prone, so leaving power
| lines exposed and above ground is pretty common. You'll see
| similar in Japan as well.
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| That goes against my intuition. Everything standing about the
| ground is bound to have things fall over it in an earthquake.
| Power lines could be much safer under the ground.
|
| From a friend of mine who was trying hard to get the
| "unsightly" utility poles buried underground - it was just a
| lack of interest and funds. Just not a priority here.
|
| Almost all new neighborhoods have utility lines buried.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| This is fairly common across the US (based on your use of the
| metric system I'm guessing you're not familiar with US cities.)
| About the only areas with buried lines are high-density urban
| neighborhoods and wealthy suburbs.
| thirtyseven wrote:
| My understanding is that it's only economical to bury utility
| lines when there is frequent enough inclement weather to bring
| them down, which definitely isn't the case in San Jose.
| jcims wrote:
| Absolutely amazing nobody was killed. I wonder what the
| conversation was like on the bus keeping folks in while there was
| fire encroaching. Even if you don't touch the conductors,
| potential gradient can ruin your day.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Is there a right technique for hopping (literally) out of bus
| like that?
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(page generated 2021-08-15 23:00 UTC)