News from N. Wisc.:NG and NSP

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I manage a restuarant up here on Lake Superior. One of my parttime employees is a highschool senior who just joined the National Guard. His 1st weekend of basic training was 2 weeks ago. I questioned him this weekend about how it went and what they did. They spent the entire weekend training in bio/chemical hazard stuff. Some of the stuff they did: practice changing hazard suits without taking off gas masks; simulate half of the group dead and trying to determine how they died; studying prevailing wind conditions (apparantly concern over incidents in Chicago or Duluth. We don't have any chemical plants or even much of a population up here!); etc. This is their FIRST weekend of training!! No gun work but work on how to set up and disable personal land mines. ??

Also, This group has already been signed up for duty on 12/31. It's being decided if they will stay in the local armory or not. Obviously, they won't even have completed basic training yet and these are all 17 year old highschool students. Whew!!

Ashton and Leska, maybe it's time to repost that personal shelter info again. Maybe on a regular basis like Stan does with preps. Put it up in prep forum, too.

It also happens that this kid's dad is a long-time Northern States Power repairman. Now of course, NSP's story re readiness has been the same as we hear everywhere: We're READY!! But interestingly enough, the entire repair crew of about 25 people will be spending 12/31 sleeping on cots inside the generating plant. Fun. NO Problem, just how we like to party up here in the north country!!

Now, I have some issues with NSP and the way they have handled power outages in the past. An example: last Labor Day Weekend (one of our biggest money-making weekends in the restaurant) we had a power outage just as we opened the restaurant in the a.m. We can't operate without power for a variety of reasons. So there we all stood, with customers coming in wondering when they could get some breakfast.And of course, payroll is still ticking along with no money coming in. So I called NSP and their customer service say "shouod be fixed by 9 a.m." So, we continue to stand around. 9 a.m. comes and goes. 9:45 I call them again. I quote: "The most current information we have says it should be fixed by 9 a.m." !!!??? I asked to speak to the supervisor and the person on the line got very hot under the collar and told me the supervisor wouldn't know anything more than she did. Hmmm. Should I shut down, call it a lost day, send the staff home and at least save the cost of payroll? or just keep standing around waiting??? Finally, this kid whose dad works for NSP called his mom who paged his dad out on the repair and found out that they had to walk all the lines and find out where the break was. So, based on that, I shut down. Power didn't come back until 4 p.m.

So of course now I wonder, if we experience outages 1/1 or whenever, in the dead of winter, how will we know when to move into survivor mode, when to drain the buildings, when to start moving the inferm into the shelter, etc. etc. Do we have any hope at all of getting an honest assesment of the situation from the power company?? Probably not, eh? This has got to be a problem everywhere. Any ideas around this?

-- cat (ccordes@ashland.baysat.net), November 15, 1999

Answers

I live in Hudson (on the western border). Our uneasiness on that score prompted us to install a generator. If the power goes out, we'll flip the switch. At least we'll have heat and light. And I have no ready answer to your question, but I would think 24 hours would be about right.

-- Dennis (djolson@cherco.net), November 15, 1999.

We have a lot of chemical plants in the desert southwest. For what it's worth have been typing a lot of HazMat physicals for quite a variety of personnel at plant over the past 2 months (security guards, etc). Was kind of curious when I got the first one, now there seems to be explanations surfacing. Glad I don't work nor live near one of them.

-- claurann (claurann@aol.com), November 15, 1999.

I find it interesting that the kid's in the Guard, and is going to work the holiday. You stated

"His 1st weekend of basic training was 2 weeks ago."

Now was this his first EVER training or the first AFTER basic/AIT (advanced individual training?) There is a difference, and its VERY important.

The reason it's so important is that if your boy has not been to an actual basic training program, (i.e. served approx. 12-16 week active duty at a major military installation) then he is completely without any knowedge of posse comitatus, the rules of engagement, or any other land-warfare training. In other words, if the Guard is going to be placing loaded live weapons in an untrained 17 year old hands, and putting them on the streets, telling them that "You are in charge!" then heaven help us all. Visions of a Mad Max scenario become all that more possible. Imagine it. High School kids with automatic weapons and the authority to use them. Yeesh!!

Could you find out and post the intel? I'd be interested in knowing/finding out the answer.

-- Billy Boy (Rakkasan@Yahoo.com), November 15, 1999.


Early this summer we visited with a friend who works for another power company in Wisconsin, and we were told that they were "suggesting" to their employees that generators might be a good idea. It sounds like they will have a full crew working at the end of the year. This fall, I attended a seminar put on by NSP in the Twin Cities about Y2K, and they mostly talked about how they are training people to be able to use the manual controls of power plants, switching gear, etc., if the computer controlled equipment wasn't working. This attitude actually sounded better to me than just saying that nothing will go wrong, or that they have manual controls.

-- Jim (jiminwis@yahoo.com), November 15, 1999.

The plan here in Beaver County, PA, as I understand it, is that Emergency Management and a Red Cross director will be at EMA headquarters. If difficulties arise in a particular area of the county, the nearest borough or township chief will notify EMA and within two hours, Red Cross can have a "mass care center" set up. (So far, they have four shelters identified, sufficient for 800 people, in a county of 186,000.) The decisions and logistics seem to rest in EMA's hands. Hopefully they will receive accurate information from the county's utilities.

I don't know, cat. Can't figure out the details myself. But you may want to talk with your local EMA. I was able to persuade mine to send lists of the county's hazardous chemicals and their sites to the directors of emergency medicine at our local hospitals. Maybe there is some way you can help with the complex thinking-through of it all.

By the way, that was a pretty harrowing story about your young friend in the Guard. God help us all.

-- Faith Weaver (suzsolutions@yahoo.com), November 15, 1999.



god bless him. just makes me sick to think of a kid (high school senior) having that kind of role with so little life experience. i love this country but i would never volutarily/willingly let my boys serve under this administration.

-- tt (cuddluppy@yahoo.com), November 15, 1999.

Billy Boy - It was his VERY FIRST weekend of training, after being inducted. That's why I was so shocked. I will ask him about the rest of his training schedule, how much is planned prior to rollover. He didn't ask for anymore time off so I just assumed that it would be the one-weekend-per-month deal that it traditionally has been for guards.

Jim - I agree that having well-trained repair people on hand is sensible. And, in spite of the problems I talked about having with NSP, they have always seemed to be one of the better power companies around. But I still think that having the entire crew sleep in the plant on New Year's Eve is an extrodinary measure that belies the "No Problem" spin. They must be a lot more worried than they let on, don't you think?

-- cat (ccordes@ashland.baysat.net), November 15, 1999.


WP & L has approval from the PSC to charge all customers for Year 2000 Remediation Costs. The total charge back will be almost $6M.

If anyone wants it, I've got a word document from the PSC giving all the reasons why...

-- Paul Hepperla (paulhep@terracom.net), November 15, 1999.


Cat: This is nothing unusual. The kid has joined the NG, has not gone for basic training yet, but must start drilling with his unit. He will never be put on the streets with a load weapon until he has been trained. All the National Guard and Reserve units are receiving training in chemical and biological warefare. This is the result of potential terrorist activity that a unit may face when deployed world- wide and not Y2K. For the record: I'm a Chief with fifteen years in the Naval Reserve. The Chief.

-- The Chief (the chief @aol.com), November 15, 1999.

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