CERT, Day 2

[rachelmanija]

Today I learned how to drag a person with a blanket, and that sprinkling any powdery substance like salt or sugar over rough ground will facilitate that.

Also, I learned that with a lever and fulcrum, a ninety-pound woman can lift a car. Alas, that was not a demo, but only an anecdote.

I brought in my transparent backpack/survival kit in for show-and-tell. Everyone loved its handy transparency. (No need to go digging around for items, possibly losing some in th process- you can see without opening it exactly where everything is.

Apparently the last day (next Saturday) is a massive hand-on simulation. No idea how far they're going to go, but I overheard one of the instructors saying something like, "Don't you think it would be too difficult to make them search the entire structure?" (We're in one room of a very large complex.)

One of the teachers is a hazmat (hazardous materials) specialist. I asked him about the incident last week in which a man, apparently transporting medical supplies, apparently accidentally spilled mercury on the subway platform. He reported the spill to a subway manager, then hopped on a subway, presumably confident that it would be treated with all proper seriousness and immediately cleaned up in a matter befitting a toxic chemical spilled in a public location.

It was eight hours before the station was cleared and the mercury was cleaned up. Most of this delay was due to the subway officials not bothering to report it or do anything else useful for about seven hours. I think LA officials are still trying to figure out what happened and who to fire. Now, it was a very small amount of a chemical which, albeit toxic, is at least not likely to harm anyone by having tiny amounts tracked around a subway platform. But still.

The hazmat guy agreed with me that MTA clearly had its collective head up its ass needed better protocols for handling hazmat incidents.

Comments

[sarge-5150.livejournal.com]

When I was thirteen, the "science" teacher at the fundamentalist private school I attended gave me a bottle of mercury to take home. (I was building a barometer for my science project.) He gave me absolutely no instructions on its safe handling, presumably because he didn't know any better. I remember spending the evening pushing the quicksilver back and forth on the bright orange bar. What were the symptoms of mercury poisoning again?

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

Also, I learned that with a lever and fulcrum, a ninety-pound woman can lift a car. Alas, that was not a demo, but only an anecdote.


I can tell you from personal experience that a 120 lb woman can lift a 600-700 lb motorcycle from the ground to upright using nothing more than her legs for leverage. (and I know I've lifted my own 500 pound beastie on nothing more than sheer embarassed adrenaline.)

However, cars are much more ground stable than a 2-wheeled contrivance.

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

When I was a kid, my best friend's family owned a trucking company and we often got to play with/have the damaged freight. One of our favorites was a big jar of mercury--we used to pour it on our hands. Man, that stuff is heavy, and it is so neat the way it beads back together! Um. My mom put a stop to it when she found out, but I often wonder what the heck it did to me.

Did your CERT stuff cover scent dogs? I've got a very fine sniffing dog and we've been playing a bunch of scent games from Roy Hunter's book on scent games. He's a British police dog trainer and there's lots of fascinating stuff in there. Very interesting--teaching dogs to find people in buildings, distinguish between hot and cold taps, find 'hot' ie recent scents, specific chemicals, etc.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

No, working with scent dogs requires a lot more training than we'll get.

[slithytove.livejournal.com]

with a lever and fulcrum, a ninety-pound woman can lift a car.

With a lever and fulcrum, a ninety-pound woman can lift a planet.

You need something to stand on, of course, and a longish lever with sufficient tensile strength...

Mercury

[liquid-identity.livejournal.com]

Now, it was a very small amount of a chemical which, albeit toxic, is at least not likely to harm anyone by having tiny amounts tracked around a subway platform.

Not quite true. Expectant mothers and children are very sensitive to mercury (it affects development, among other things), to the point where they're supposed to lay off tuna which can contain significant amounts of mercury.

The standard way to clean up mercury is to use sulphur, if I remember correctly, which absorbs mercury vapour. The vapour is the most dangerous, absorption through skin tends to be less so.