Musco to the F5 Rescue

[toolboy]

Well I thought I would share my latest adventures with you. I live in NE Iowa where I am a Professional Firefighter. The little town of Parkersburg just to our west was destroyed by an F5 tornado Sunday afternoon. I was on duty and we went there that night and every day since. Half the town is gone, and I do mean gone. The rest was without power until yesterday.
The first night only 4 hours after the storm hit Musco showed up. A lone semi with mast and lights. It set up in the center of the devistation. The town was under cerfew as of 8:00 p.m. accessible on to rescue and police. We sifted through the carnage for hours searching for survivors and missing citizens. That lone rig lit up the entire town. I had my barnburner with me and searched with it at times but the musco lighting was spectacular. I, as a fellow light geek, was already privy to the capabilty of Musco but others had never seen anything like it. I have no idea whether they were called to come or whether they came on their own accord. I would just like to thank them for being there everynight since. At dawn they would tear down and stage outside the city so they were out of the way of clean-up efforts. Without them the situation would have been so much worse for us rescuers. I am attaching a link so show the rig that was there.
P.S. I can't tell you how many agencies asked me what my Barnburner was and how they could really use one, thanks again Dan for building it, I hope you get some sales out of it.

http://www.musco.com/temporary/muscolight.html

 

[seery]

It really makes you feel good when companies step-up and help out fellow citizens and communities in need.

 

[PhantomPhoton]

I'm sad to say I didn't hear much about that particular disaster. My thoughts are with the people there.
That is really cool that they came in and lit the place up. Incredibly decent if the company is doing it simply from the goodness of their hearts.

Well too bad those trucks run on desiel. Need to retrofit them to run on natural gas/ hybrid etc. Then man oh man I've found the vehicle I need to buy when I win the lotto.
:devil:

 

[Burgess]

to Toolboy --


Thank you for the story, and Link.


I'd never heard of Musco previously. Looks very cool. :twothumbs


Did you have a chance to stand nearby ?

Was it Real Loud ?

So loud that it'd make conversation difficult ? (for example)


Good Luck, and Stay Safe.




BTW, yes, I want one !






Oh, one more thing . . . .


Rumor has it, there's gonna' be an Ultra-Quiet version,
announced at SHOTshow 2009.

Runs on CR123A Lithium batteries (Primary only)


Requires 6.02 * 10^23 cells :wow:



Let's just hope it's gonna' have an S - O - S mode !




_

 

[climberkid]

that is just awesome. i had a dream a few weeks ago my dodge dakota was something close to that. not as powerful but just as fun. hope all ends well in that area. best of luck

 

[BVH]

Phantom.......Run those trucks on Bio Diesel or a percentage of Bio and equip them with a CAT and particulate trap and they will be pretty much just as clean as gasoline for sure and very close to Nat Gas. They will also get twice the mileage of CNG and 1.5 x's the mileage of gasoline. This means actual fewer grams per mile of emissions. All things considered, a cleaner vehicle. This is pretty much an equalizer for gasoline and CNG power systems.

 

[2000xlt]

how much power is that truck using to run those lights

 

[toolboy]

As far as noise, it was really quiet, far quiter than my 6500 watt generator. We searched within 100 yards of the light for a potential missing person and it wasn't loud at all. I still heard the door chime going off on one of the totalled cars 40 yards away from me when we were within about 200 yards of the light. P.S. the missing person was later found.

The tornado was the first F5 to hit Iowa in over 35 years. It is difficult to explain, but being there is like being on a different planet and the nearest comparable damage photos I have ever seen were from the atomic blash at Hiroshima. I donated my time and construction equipment, dump trailer to help in the clean-up but I am still so depressed after being there every day I go. I didn't lose anything to the tornado but seeing this level of devastation really gets me down. I'm a professional firefighter for the last 13 years and have my own construction company on the side. I see bad things every day and can usually not let it bother me but this is something new, something that overwhelms all your senses by the scope of it. I have a new respect for tornadoes that I never had even after having helped rescue people from one that rolled through our community a couple of years ago. This was no little tornado this was over 1/2 mile wide and sucked the asphalt out of the ground on some of the driveways, there was nowhere to hide.
There is some footage on youtube of the monster. A local station had video of it when it was F5 and over 1/2 mile wide but its not on youtube yet. Here is a link to some aerial footage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufKNwm1fGyg


Sorry for the rant, just had to vent.

 

[climberkid]

seeing that footage made me feel sooo depressed and sad for all of those who suffer. the reporter was right, where do they start?!:sigh:

 

[SilverFox]

Hello Toolboy,

Our thoughts and prayers go out to you and the others involved in this disaster.

Feel free to rant all you need to. Take care of your self.

Tom

 

[toolboy]

Thanks all for the warm remarks. Remember I said I didn't lose anything in the tornado, well this week it was my turn. I live in Cedar Falls Ia. That is the same Cedar Falls that the "Today" show was reporting on with the dike they are trying to save so it doesn't flood the downtown. Unfortunately I store my construction equipment, atv's and materials at our family farm along the Shell Rock River. Monday we got a flash flood on the river 2.2 feet higher than ever recorded. The water rose 8-10 inches per hour, for hours on end. I lost alot of material, and our family will probably lose the house on the property. I could have gotten my material out but my skid steer broke a $1500 hydraulic pump last Friday trying to do a good deed for someone. We could not get another loader in time before we got swamped by the river.
Compounding this, I loaned about $600 dollars worth of equipment to a coworker trying to clean-up his house from the rains, when it flooded his house, filling his basement and my equipment. I think I now know what clinical depression is like. I still tell myself that its ok, nobody got hurt and it was just money, alot of money.
The dike held last night but if it rains today our town will flood regardless. The are calling for an additional 2 inches here between now and Friday. There are several creeks that run through town into the river. They are already full from the river backing into them, they cannot flow into the river anymore. We are preparing to evacuate the fire station where I work, and we are working a new schedule amounting to a 100 hours per week until the crisis is over. Our guys did 16 hrs of rescues in the boat yesterday. I've got to go and assess the scope of damage to the family farm. There was not one square inch of dry ground for 3/4 of mile around the farm.
The one thing that has kept me sane and grounded through this is a call I ran about 2 months ago. We were called to a 12 yr old in respiratory arrest at a school. The school if for physical and mentally challenged children. When we got there I met Dallas. He is the 12 yr old boy suffering from muscular dystrophy who was in arrest. He is a quadraplegic, bound to a wheelchair who cannot talk as he has a stoma (tube in his neck to breath through) and is on a portable ventilator. Dallas is deformed with very short arms and legs that are unusable. He was still in his van with a home heathcare worker that just started that week helping Dallas. It was pouring rain, imagine that here in Cedar Falls. When I found him he was going in and out of consciousness and the teenage heathcare worker was very paniced. I calmed her and told her I would take over. The ambu bag that she was using to ventilate him was old and had duct tape on it. I discarded it and used a new one from our med kit. After repositioning his stoma tube, which had come dislodged I began to ventilate Dallas. He became more aware and had a paniced look in his eyes. The school showed us he has a DNR order, which is a "Do not resuscitate order" which limits us to only rescue breathing for him. We cannot shock him or do CPR. So this is all we could do for him. I talked to him and told him I was breathing for him and to blink his eyes to let me know if he was getting enough air. He did and we communicated that way. The paramedics arrived and we transported him to hospital where he improved with medical treatment. After the call I felt horrible for all the things in my life that I let get me down. Dallas has one of the worst day to day lives I could image yet the school says he is animated and enjoys the time he spends there. If Dallas can be happy with his life then everyone should be able to enjoy there life as well. My memory of Dallas keeps me going as every day for the last several weeks just gets worse than the last. I realize this is waaaay off topic but I have run out people here to vent to. Maybe in some way Dallas can help others out there as he helped me.

 

[indycrucible]

Stay strong. Just try to take consolation is the fact that you've only lost stuff, and the truly important parts of your life are intact. The story about Dallas is very moving. Thanks for letting us in on it.

--Rob

 

[a4d]

I was actually at cummins today about their new aftertreatment filters, and they were able to run it in the small classrooms for a short amount of time because it runs so clean and quite. There was no soot at all around the exhaust tip because it's so clean running. Pretty amazing this new DPF (diesel particulate filter).

Thanks for the info and hope everyone out there is doing alright.