Mock Emergency . . .

I know . . . this is a quilting blog, but really there is more to life -unfortunately!

Honest – I would really rather be quilting.

So just to briefly explain – my day job as an administrator also includes many other hats that need to be thrown on at a moments notice.  This includes things like election officer, development officer, cleaning lady, weed inspector, financial officer, etc., etc.  I think you get the picture!  It also includes the duties as the emergency contact person (EMO officer) for the municipality.

As the EMO contact (I even have a certificate for this!) . . . I was contacted regarding an Enbridge Pipelines mock disaster exercise that was being held on Wednesday.

 

So I figured that I could leave the 2009 financial statements, that are still not done, and head out of the office for the second day in a row this week.

If, at some point during my administration, any type of emergency was to happen, it would certainly be beneficial to see how the pros deal with a situation.  The safety procedures that these guys used were amazing!

I must say that Enbridge (maybe due to some of their recent situations), seems to really have the situation under control if and when something was to happen in this particular area.

The exercise started around 9:30 a.m. and for the next 1 1/2 hours, everything was an indoors course of what types of safety concerns the participants might encounter, the procedure and work lists for the various points which included site containment, implementation and use of the apparatus that was needed; deployment of the boom vane and the set up of the skimmer.

It was very interesting to be part of the “viewing” group that had each step explained as it was happening . . . usually only see this kind of thing on a news cast and never see it happening “for real”.

Every guy on the scene knew what their particular job was and everything appeared to be implemented like a well-greased wheel.

Once everything was in the water and the peat moss was released (to simulate oil), everyone had a bit of a debriefing on site as to how the deployment of the boom vane and the orange collection tubes had unfolded.

 

Of course, some fella’s jobs didn’t look as exciting as others, but were just as important in the whole exercise as the ones that were down there getting their feet wet.

 

The river water is pumped into this collection centre and the oil is skimmed off and pumped into a collection truck . . . skimmed water is sent back into the river and will eventually be re-skimmed a number of times before the job is done.

(Disclaimer:  I had other people talking in my ear at the same time, and this is my understanding of the whole procedure – I certainly hope I don’t have it too mixed up!)

Enbridge Pipelines provided an excellent lunch and educational morning.  Even though it wasn’t quilting – it was certainly worth knowing and learning about.

Any guesses how many women were there?

Give me your guess by Friday the 8th at 6:00 p.m. and I’ll have two Sipiweske patterns for the winner!

This is also my 300th post and I certainly hadn’t planned on it being about skimmers and vanes and such . . . but what the hey! – 300 is still 300.  Hope to stick around for another 300 – have a great week and good luck with the guesses.

I’m curious to see how many people actually make it to the end of this post to give a guess – good on ‘ya if you made it this far!