|
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE MORNING REPORT BLACKBERRY EDITION Friday, May 5, 2006 =============================================================================================================== INCIDENTS Shenandoah NP Two Lost People Found and Rescued The Albermarle County Sheriff's Office contacted the park at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday, April 22nd, and reported that they'd begun an investigation into and search for an elderly couple whose vehicle had been found abandoned in a remote, mountainous, wooded area about a half mile outside the park's boundary. The 83-year-old husband had a history of dementia, and his 84-year-old wife suffered from Alzheimer's. They had evidently left their home in Philadelphia the previous morning without notifying anyone that they were traveling. They had no ties to the Virginia area. The effort to find them became urgent when very heavy rains began falling on the region. Part of that search area was in the park, so the park provided assistance in the form of both overhead personnel and ground searchers. The man was found around 11 a.m. about a quarter mile outside the park and an equal distance from his vehicle. He was unable to walk, but was still conscious. He was taken to the University of Virginia Hospital by ambulance. His wife was not found until 6:30 p.m. that evening and by that time was suffering from hypothermia. She was carried out via a semi-technical evacuation to a landing zone, then flown to the same hospital by air ambulance. Park staff assisted with both extrications. Investigators found that the couple had left home on what was intended to be a short shopping trip to a local Philadelphia department store. They did not realize that they'd overshot their destination by several hundred miles. [Clay Jordan, Deputy Chief Ranger] Independence NHP Bomb Threats and Site Evacuation On the morning of Friday, April 28th, Philadelphia PD officers advised rangers that their dispatch center had received a 911 call from an unidentified male who reported overhearing two men saying that they were going to plant a bomb in Independence Hall. Within minutes, rangers had put the park's emergency operations procedures into effect and had evacuated 500 visitors from the building. They then conducted a thorough sweep of Independence Hall and adjacent historic Congress Hall and Old City Hall. No suspicious packages or items were found, so the park reopened to visitors at 11 a.m. Just before 4 p.m. that afternoon, Philadelphia PD reported another 911 call from a man who said he'd hear two people talking about a plot to blow up the Liberty Bell during the march on immigration policy scheduled for Monday, May 1st. The caller provided police with his address, the address where the two suspects could be found, and the name of one of the suspects. Due to the similarity of both calls, park management and the park's law enforcement specialist coordinated an investigation with the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF). Investigating officers found that the caller's home address was false, that the call had been made from a payphone, and that the address where one of the alleged suspects lived was actually the home of a family that knew nothing about the incident. Tapes of the two 911 calls were compared and found to be unrelated. The investigation continues. [Ian Crane, Chief Ranger] OTHER NEWS Links to stories for those of you who are within the NPS… Today's combined NPS/NIFC fire report: * * * * * Prepared by Visitor and Resource Protection, WASO, with the cooperation and support of Delaware Water Gap NRA. --- ### --- |