Photo: San Jose Fire Department Twitter feed
This story first came to my attention via a Facebook post (below). There isn’t enough detail in the available information to make any form of judgement about the response other than “well done” and the detail Facebook post is not currently verifiable. However its a great story.
This scenario poses a number of challenges for first responders, transport providers, utilities and emergency managers. This would be great modelled in XVR and is applicable for any city that I have ever visited. Certainly, for cities with new mass transport systems, there is a world of exercising in this one scenario.
The following is the Facebook story that caught my interest, well worth a read and a think.
San Jose Fire had an impossibly complex incident scene that will be the subject of countless Battalion Chief exams in the future…
An SUV collided with a large bendy bus, pushing the bus off the road and into a high voltage power pole, which came down on top of the bus. Power lines are down across the bus and the SUV, and the streets.
At the fire station next door there is a large bang and the power goes out… crews looking to find out what happened discovered they couldn’t open the apparatus bay doors…
Switching to manual mode the doors at the fire station are opened, but they discover they can’t get their equipment out because the power lines are across the apron of the fire station.
Manually open the back doors… the electric gate at the rear of the station is closed… plans for power loss at the station involve manually exiting through the front of the apparatus bay, time was lost as crews figured out how to open the back gate…
Meanwhile the 11 people on the bus can’t leave the bus because of the power lines… but the SUV has burst into flames, and the fire is spreading to the bus… passengers can’t stay on the bus because of the fire… they can’t get off because of the electricity…
Power remains a problem and fire crews are able to get a 1.5” line on the SUV from 30’ away… the SUV fuel tank starts dripping, the fuel ignites… the water stream from 30’ away pushes the burning fuel under the SUV… to the bus…
The bus is a diesel electric hybrid with 900V batteries on the roof, smashed from above by the power pole, being attacked from below by fire… fire crews can not fight the bus fire until a bus mechanic arrives with information on how deal with the batteries… the bus mechanic arrives, but can’t go near the bus until PG&E neutralizes the power from their lines…
Somehow, everyone was removed from the bus and there were no serious injuries.
Hours later the major traffic artery remains completely closed as PGE deals with the power… when they are done fire will look at the bus and the hazmat team will analyze the damage to the bus electrical storage systems… eventually the bus and SUV will be removed and the scene turned over to PG&E to repair the power system before the road can be reopened…
Elapsed time 4:03:00 and counting, we still can’t get at the battery systems on the bus…
It’s going to be a long afternoon – did I mention it’s 98 degrees outside?