The Washington Post cries "Dramatic Rescue follows massive watermain break!" I watched this on CNN from my father's apartment in New York. The most dramatic part to us was the fact that they seemed fixated on using boats to rescue people, rather than the obvious step of stretching ropes across the road and strapping the people to them to walk out. Nor did anyone mention the seemingly even more obvious step of shutting off the water main for an hour, or at the very least, dropping sandbags over the break--though the Post claims crews found the water too turbulent to get to the valve.
Methinks the emergency responders may have had a lot of shiny new equipment, funded by the federal government's post-911 spending spree, that they wanted to try out. But maybe there was something I was missing.
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For one thing, the watermain controls were flooded out and unreachable until some of the torrent subsided, for another, because everything around the road itself was more-than-typically sloped and covered with ice on either side, so to set up ropes along each little "cluster" of stranded cars would have probably taken a lot longer and led to people panicking and possibly aggravating the situation.
Love, love, love your blog usually. Very smart with respect to all things finance. This post about emergency rescue, however, has to count as one of your least informed.
I know nothing about the subject either, but at least I know that I don't know anything.
See the Post story, where they mention chunks of asphalt torn loose by the force of the water, not to mention any other similar types of debris. Add to that the mention that it was 17 degrees out. Even if they could stretch ropes across (and attach them to what exactly? Trees? Please.), how are these people trapped in their cars supposed to hold on to a wet rope in 17 degrees against the force of water that can tear out chunks of asphalt? Or the force of the chunks of asphalt themselves?
Let's figure that the guys who train for this kind of work and get paid for this kind of work have a better clue as to what to do when this kind of thing happens, okay?
Seriously. Add an update and apologize already.
Gotta agree with Edward, with the proviso that I do know a little about the physics involved. And while I enjoy the economics on this blog, this post is ignorant in the worst way. You are basically accusing the rescuers of putting people's lives at risk in order to play with their new toys.
It was reported as a 66-inch water main. That's not something you turn off like your kitchen faucet. Attempts were being made to turn it off, at the next possible point upstream.
An apology to the people involved is warranted.
I think the others already got to it before I did, but really, when you act high and mighty outside of financial posts, it gets really aggravating when it's obvious to most bystanders why you're wrong.
I thought I'd post to amend some of the info you recognize you may not be considering, but before I do so, I think the others are too harsh on you. I didn't take your comment about new toys too seriously.
I'm a whitewater kayaker, and have had a good bit of rescue training for people stuck in dangerous torents of water.
As someone else pointed out, the primary safety concern in this situation was the temperature. People exhaust themselves much quicker in cold water, and with water temps below about 40 degrees, you lose feeling in your fingers (not to mention hands and feet) in about 90 seconds.
The second risk is debris. I'm not sure how fast the water was moving in terms of cubic feet per second, but it doesn't take much to knock a person over trying to cross a current. For anyone untrained in how water dynamics works (which is most everyone) the safe thing is to keep people out of a current.
Last, and not least, is that rope is the most dangerous thing you can use in a rescue involving current. You would be amazed how quickly and easily rope can wrap itself around you if there's any slack in it. The mantra I learned from one of the nation's leading whitewater rescue teachers is "A rope is a dangerous serpent."
Since the current wasn't strong enough to push cars around, the safest thing to do was to leave people in safe locations and take the least amount of risk.
If it was real cold, boats make sense. That apart, I am in favour of rescuers trying out their toys in minor incidents. That way, learning what's wrong with them is less fatal. And they do try out their toys all over the world (e.g.I noticed the phenomenon in reporting from a district only slightly damaged by a Chinese earthquake this year.)
Oh, come on people. One of the joys of blogging is posting about stuff one knows nothing about. :-)
Having said that, let me prove it. I think I'd rather have my rescuers using equipment they'd trained with (apparently at the base of Great Falls, according to a local radio report), even if they have to adapt their methods, than to improvise something brand new.
Hey...if Meghan stuck only to the topics she really knows anything about this blog would not be updated very often. -badoom-ching-
Ok...that was not necessary nor in the Christmas spirit of goodwill to all.
As the break appears to have been a fairly catastrophic blowout of a section of 66 inch pipe this is not something you can just turn off like a kitchen sink faucet. There's a little more coordination involved - particularly in extreme weather conditions like this as you don't want to introduce pressure transients that might blow out other areas of pipe that are just waiting/wanting to fail.
Boats are a good idea - as was already mentioned that water is very cold. No need to add hypothermia to the mix of problems.
To take this back to something Meghan might actually understand and credibly comment upon - this does highlight why aging infrastructure projects may (should?) be a leading contender for some of this free money that seems to be just piled up in boxes in D.C.
"shiny new equipment"
Your description is reminiscent of the Billy Wilder/Kirk Douglas movie "Ace in the Hole". The protagonists endanger a man in a well in an attempt to look heroic. It stands up well and is definitely worth watching if you're into that sort of thing.
Hmm, Megan, update/apologize about something over which she was wrong? You guys must be new!
I'm shocked that some of you are shocked. She spouts on about crap of which she's completely ignorant as a rule. I think that's what this whole Asymmetric Information thing is about. Information is spread rather asymmetrically around here.
"The second risk is debris. I'm not sure how fast the water was moving in terms of cubic feet per second, but it doesn't take much to knock a person over trying to cross a current. For anyone untrained in how water dynamics works (which is most everyone) the safe thing is to keep people out of a current."
I agree. I have actually taken hydrology in college, and the force that water exerts is astonishing. Quickly moving water at knee depth will take you along, and there is little you can do about it. The water I saw on video looked fast and VERY dangerous to me. Stretch a rope across?
No.
The something you're missing is a brain.
I'm going to have to agree with Megan_McArdle here, at least with respect to her point that there were safer, more efficient, less sexy ways to tackle problems like this. As Panthan notes, regardless of how f'd up the area is around the water main that broke, you are *always* able to find a point upstream (upflow) where you can shut off pressure.
Where I part with Panthan is about "efforts being made to shut it off". Sorry, it simply shouldn't take that long to shut it off. Furthermore, they should have sensors that give them a quick warning when something is going wrong (which will show up as a sudden drop in pressure downstream of the break.
If they can't quickly turn off the pressure in emergency situations like this, they seriously need some retraining and re-engineering.
Economics, medicine, philosophy, religion, law...
... and now emergency rescue.
Look at you, an authority on EVERYTHING!
What did the internets do before this blog?
"Shiny new equipment"--what I saw didn't look particularly post 9-11 (though I don't know who paid for the choppers and their baskets); but the boat was a garden-variety punt and the crew using it were specialists in the sort of white-water rescue that's a regular requirement in the Great Falls-Little Falls section of the Potomac.
I occasionally check into this particular blog on my way into or out of one of the good ones on the Atlantic. Once again, I am reminded why it is so seldom that I do.
I am and will be forever grateful that Megan is in no way responsible for any aspect of the response to our economic problems or, suddenly, a fast-water rescue.
What rubbish.
This post, and the other like it that regularly appear on this blog contribute to my suspicion that this blog (along with other elements of The Atlantic's online presence) are some sort of inside joke on the part of The Atlantic; or some sort of experiment in the credulity of internet readers vs. paper readers; or something else I'm simply too dull-witted to understand. In twenty-odd years of reading the magazine, I never got that feeling. But here on The Atlantic's website, it's a regular occurrence.
It's interesting that the post was edited sometime between yesterday afternoon and this morning. It makes Megan's callousness and cluelessness about this situation somewhat less obvious. When commenting about matters unrelated to her University of Chicago education, she would do well to at least consult those who possess a modicum of understanding about the field (i.e. not her dad). I found several posts on this forum -- including a few from an emergency operations guy from Montgomery County -- very enlightening.
Since hyperlinks don't seem to work, here's the URL: http://www.easternuswx.com/bb/index.php?showtopic=183209
the rope method megan is proposing is called a tyrolean recue, a standard procedure in whitewater river recues.
the rope is suspended above the river at an angle to the flow. the rope (and the rescuer on the rope) does not need to touch the water, ever. you need qualified people on both shores ( in communication, cell phones or radios work, hand signals if the people are trained), a very long rope and a way to get the rope across the river (usually most difficult). The rope can be secured to anything, a parked car, a tree, a building, a boulder, a dumpster. given trained personnel with the right equipment and depending on the set up chosen, it can be a very fast and efficient method of rescue. yes it works, even in sub freezing water and of incapacitated bodies.
ropes are very dangerous in water. so are boats. the rescuers probably chose what was at hand and what they trained with. looks like it worked.
I have been to many blogs for many years and never ever have I seen such rudeness to a host. Inexcusable rudeness.
She can be wrong without having to be attacked by anonymous and distant strangers.
Whatever else she might be she's a saint for putting up with b******t losers like youse goys-
"By using this service you agree not to post material that is obscene, harassing, defamatory, or otherwise objectionable."
Not that complicated...
DAve, it's very unlikely that she'd sleep with you no matter how vigorously you defend her honor, so give it up already.
It was a pig-ignorant post that she refuses to update, correct or apologize for. Which should not be surprising, because that is her long-established modus operandi.