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| Alexis Park Inn & Suites |
| 1165 S. Riverside Drive |
| Iowa City, Iowa 52246 |
| Toll Free: 888-9ALEXIS |
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(888-925-3947) |
| Local: 319 337-8665 |
| Fax: 319 351-4102 |
| Email:AlexisParkInn@mchsi.com |
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2006 Oklahoma Fires |
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| In March we flew out to Las Vegas in Jim & Tami Burns' Piper Aztec. En route we ran into hellacious, almost unbelievable winds. At one point our ground speed was clocked at 54 knots -- in a plane that normally flies 160 knots! | |
| During this time, grass fires sprang up in Texas and Oklahoma. Millions of acres burned, and several cities were threatened by the conflagration. The selfless actions of thousands of firefighters saved countless lives and homes. | |
| Joe Schneider, a pilot based in Woodward, Oklahoma (KWWR) works at a chemical plant that was threatened by the fires, and is a part of the plant's emergency response team. He also owns a small ranch that was threatened, so the threat posed by these fires was very personal. His remarkable story, along with his photos, are below. (Click on the small pix for a larger version...) | |
| So... I'm having this bad dream. It's 3:30 am and I can't sleep. The wind is howling its ferocious song and I think the wind turbine vents are about to overspeed into total oblivion. I groggily put on my robe and walk out into the garage, retrieve a flashlight, snap on the backyard light and force myself to head out into the gale. In the dream, I'm conscious the neighbors may also be awake and think this idiot is creating quite a spectacle in his flying robe and white briefs waving a flashlight unsteadily at the attic vents and patio roof. Three lag bolts have torn loose and the metal roofing is beginning to levitate like an overloaded Cherokee. The vents are about to go into overspeed, their bearings screaming in protest. Too smart to get up on the roof under those conditions I thud heavily into my easy chair rather than wake up the wife trying to re-enter the bed where I know I'll never get to sleep. The walls are creaking under the strain of natures forces. As the dream continues, I find myself at work and the wind just keeps building like a freight train rolling down a mountain. Unstoppable, unrelenting, unforgiving. We catch news on the radio of wildfires North of my hometown a few miles away. Winds are now 60 mph and we all gasp at what could be about to happen. Adrenalin in a dream? One of my direct reports, a volunteer firefighter gets paged and asks to leave. I give the o.k. with an admonishment to be careful. I head home for lunch. A fire has broken out 3/4 mile East of our house. It is quickly extinguished before I get there, Thank God, by reserve firefighters left in town just for such an emergency. Only 30 or 40 acres burned. | |
| The dream is now turning into a nightmare of the worst kind. Towns from all over the area are sending volunteers to risk their lives. Two small town schools are being evacuated. The school buses from one are needed so they can be used to help evacuate the prison. The convicts are going to be housed in a High School Gymnasium. The other school, in a different town is in real danger. School buses ferry children to a landmark hill where frantic, coughing parents, trying to see through the smoke and haze rendezvous and retrieve their most precious possessions, their offspring. | |
| Smoke is seen billowing in the Northwest. Ten or Twelve miles away? Moving away from us here at work. At work in a chemical refinery. A large chemical refinery. A refinery with storage capacity of 7 million gallons of highly flammable methanol. Yes, methanol whose flames can be invisible. Suddenly, the horrible thought occurs. This horrific windstorm is the precursor of a powerful frontal boundary moving through the area. A wind shift is inevitable. And if history has its way, we could be directly in the path of the building firestorm. |
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The two tanks in the upper right are 2 million and 5 million gallons of methanol. You can see the railyard in the background. This picture was taken on 3/25/06 before the latest fires. |
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| Winds from the Southwest race across the prairie, stampeding cattle in a futile attempt at escape. Two fires breakout at a town 20 miles to the Southeast, one on each side. The wind is whipping tree branches into power lines and sparks are flying like 4th of July sparklers. More people leave work to check on family and join fire brigades. One of our maintenance technician loses 9000 dollars worth of cattle as they reach a fence and are trapped into a "too early in their lives BBQ". | |
| We assemble our Emergency Response Team, notify our backup units, break out the radio scanners and order the firewater system switched from the emergency reserve tank to city water. The fire brigade unfurls roll after roll of firehose and supervisors have crews begin wetting down the plant perimeter. How much time do we have? The wind is now in the West, Northwest. Stronger than ever. Fire is closing at 50 miles per hour. The windsocks placed for use in evacuations in case of vapor releases look as straight as a rail on an overdose of Viagra. I order railcars of flammable chemical moved from the two North railyard tracks closest to the plant perimeter inward to tracks 5 and 6. Fortunately, the pullout train arrives and moves most of the dangerous cars for us. | |
| Somewhere in the midst of this I have a flashback. I picture Honeck and Burns fighting to control the twin Piper in a violent dance to the runway at Dalhart about two weeks ago. It's just a quick snapshot in a nightmare that is whirling out of control. | |
| Farmers, ranchers, clerks, and accountants are facing a 40 foot wall of fire, now racing through the wildlife reserve five miles away. They bravely make a stand as multiple fires merge. Dozers, road graders, and farmers on tractors are feverously working to widen fire breaks. Dust and haze lower visibility to 1/2 mile at our location and the fire is still 5 to 7 miles away. |
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Here's the dam spillway and wolf creek. It is back down now, but you can see were the fire was stopped and the area burned in the background. |
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| Now the nightmare gets weird as most nightmares are want to do. Someone makes the desperate decision to open the floodgates at the dam. It is a desperate gamble. A million to one shot. Perhaps raising Wolf Creek could prevent the fire from reaching homes near the highway. The fire is descending on the Fort from which Custer departed to wipe out Black Kettle at the Battle of the Washita. How ironic that the Indians used prairie fires as a tactic to battle the cavalry. Ever notice how nightmares go off on a tangent? | |
| If the fire wall jumps the highway we will be consumed. The city is only two miles from the plant. It has already jumped several dirt roads and two or three other two lane asphalt highways. And then the tanker arrives. No, not the oil field tanker trucks supplying the fire units. This is the aerial tanker. The forest service tanker led by a small twin... with a lady pilot. |
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Note how close the fire came to town. |
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| A calm soothing female voice breaks over the "oh so masculine" ground firefighters radios. She slowly leads the behemoth tanker through a laboriously slow upwind pass. A dry run to gauge their position and build their strategy. As they turn downwind they pick up incredible speed and bank hard, very hard as they swoosh by and then slow to a seeming standstill headed back into the wind. Firefighters stop to watch... watch unbelievably, with soot covered faces and worn exhausted bodies. The show is on and they cheer even though they believe there isn't a chance in the devil's own hell that this little female voice can do them a bit of good. | |
| One dry pass, two fake passes... suddenly marker smoke deploys from the twin and the pregnant dinosaur tightens up and blindly follows as if on a leash. Over the radio with an audience in awe, she coaxes the beast to follow exactly as she instructs. Red retardant explodes from the belly of the beast in a display that is indescribable to someone who is facing fate a close quarters. |
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A close-up shot of the town. |
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| Firefighters' helmets fly skyward like caps at a High School graduation and the beast lays down a drifting line of salvation ordered straight from heaven. A line that, as if by magic transforms flame into smoke. A little bit of Heaven in a whole lot of Hell. | |
| As the firefighters gather themselves back up. They attack with renewed vigor. The tanker calls in to the local airport and wants to know if the runway will support their 70,000 pound weight. It will but the taxi ways and ramp won't. They are relegated to aerial surveillance. But the firefighters grasp the chance, determined to deal the final fatal blow in this win a little lose a lot battle. Long hours later as the wind slowly ebbs, the dying embers do too. | |
| 24 fire departments (not all, but most volunteer) from three states. The Red Cross. At least (5) 18 wheel tanker trucks from the oil field companies. Countless road graders, dozers tractors, many supplied by individuals and privately owned companies. Highway Patrol and Sheriffs from all over directing traffic. One brand new fire truck totally destroyed. (A roll over into a ditch in low visibility. Consumed by fire, firefighter rescued). Two injured volunteer firefighters. (Eye injuries). One Park Headquarters damaged? A few out buildings lost. No civilians hurt. No school children hurt. One house lost. Several with minor water and smoke damage. |
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Post-fire land whipped into sand dunes by 60 mph winds. |
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| No Heroes left. | |
| Bullshit! | |
| There are Heroes in the Heartland. | |
| Oh..... it wasn't a dream | |
| It wasn't a nightmare. | |
| It happened yesterday. | |
| Right here. | |
| Just another day in drought ridden Tornado Alley. | |
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- Joe Schneider 8437R |
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