7-8-21...ENG*43 DRAFTS ON THE FLOODED HIGHWAY.
- Thread starter 68jk09
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Gr8 pics
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I haven't seen an Eductor on a regular ENG in i don't know how long.
Thanks, I figured it would be extremely rare on a regular Engine. The last time I actually saw one in "action" was when I was a kid watching 70 & 53 getting water out of their cellar. It seemed to work well.
Last time I saw one used was back in 1974 at Red Hook pool. Pipe burst in pump room and E279 was used to remove water via educator. With size of pool it took a day. Break happened on 6x9 and had to rotate three men at a time throughout the night.
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I had Drafting ops performed at the WTC site on one of the last weekends before the Recovery ended.... it was a Saturday morning & i was the IC for the site & it had rained heavy all night.....around 1100 hrs we saw that the water was such that it was deeper than the about 1 ft high wooden pontoons (timbers) that were on the floor of the site & used to rake through material as it was deposited on them.....some were close to floating & it looked like Recovery might have to have been shut down .....i spoke to some other Chiefs there & they agreed something had to be done so i called the Manh Dispatcher & requested that ENG*26 be Special Called to the site for Drafting as i knew they had a new Pumper which i thought would be tight pump wise....the Dispatcher first ran it by the Chief of Ops at home who said "don't contaminate a new Rig ...tell them to use the Spare at the site" .....(this Spare in time past had ran for many hours pumping water on the buried material that had continued to burn for so long).....there had been almost a hundred elevator shafts at the site originally & several of the flooded shaft pits remained & their locations could be observed thru the cloudy water from the top of the ramp but not really when walking around at the flooded ground level under the dirty water but they made for a great pit to draft from....the Spare was driven down the ramp to the closest elevator pit .....there were many lengths of hose laying around that had been used at various times during the ongoing ops ... i had enough connected to go up the wall & into a street sewer on Liberty St....the FFs dug up 2 lengths of hard suction (maybe from the Ten House i don't remember)......Drafting was started & water was being pumped out & the rain was slowing but after the water level had dropped about halfway of the height of the pontoons the Rig crapped out....the Dept Mechanic who was on site crawled in the water ( if you could call it that ...mostly cloudy gray & somewhat thick) under the Rig & made an on scene repair that allowed us to continue until the level went down to the bedrock ....i have no idea how much water was drafted but it was basically all that was covering the lower floor area....A LOT......everybody did a GREAT JOB on a chilly wet day....Sal Cassano was the Chief Of Ops & came from home & told everybody they saved the day.....about a week later i was told that the DEP freaked out when they found out we pumped the suspect water into the sewer system which supposedly due to the heavy rain was redirecting sewer water somewhere else ?.... i don't know where but we kept the mission going there wasn't much choice that Saturday............. another Drafting incident that i know of was during the Major Fire involving many homes in Breezy Point during the height of Sandy.....i was not there but another BC from my old BN the 46 (now DC Fred Mallett) was assigned from QTRS in Elmhurst & was the 1st actual BN to go 10-84 (due to so many BNs in between operating elsewhere in the storm.....Chief Pfieffer was there before as he lived there as were other Members who lived there )..... there was a serious water supply problem & Drafting from the flood water in the street under the Rigs with the Hard Suction & Strainer was the solution.....in more recent years all new Pumpers have a dedicated Drafting Suction setup on board ..........one other mini Drafting op that i know of was in R*5 many years ago at a boat Fire in a Ship repair yard on SI.....there was a water problem & they set up a Dewatering Pump to supply an 1 3/4" to extinguish the Fire.......in my old BN one of the ENGs had a Dewatering Pump & i used to do a MUD using the Dewatering Pump & a length of 1 3/4" with a wash down tip to demonstrate the capability ... for a water supply at the Drill we opened a 4 1/2 " cap on a hydrant & placed the intake hose (minus the strainer so it fit in better ....always use the strainer for other than fresh hydrant water ) & kept the hydrant open enough to keep enough water flowing but not blasting the intake hose out...... i seem to remember the ENG using a DW pump to supply a stream Drafting from a part of the lake alongside the train yards off the Van Wyck in a spot remote from a hydrant......another tool to keep in mind & limited mostly by imagination. |
As opposed to having the rig sitting there doing nothing while the members waded through water to pull people out of cars?
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Drafting is a skill we teach all of our Engine Companies and expect them to be able to perform at all times, especially in my battalion (Battalion 1); we're effectively surrounded on 3 sides by riverfront.
They came upon a problem, had the solution and used it. It probably didn't take all that long to set up and accomplish and it probably eliminated a bunch of other headaches
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What would your solution be ??? The highway was completely shut down. It would’ve taken other resources a while to get there. The degan is a major highway and it needed to be open. So I ask again what would you have done
Right? l can not believe that this has caused any stir,... lol.
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