NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

MORNING REPORT

Monday, November 5, 2012

INCIDENTS

Eastern Areas

Hurricane Recovery Efforts In Full Stride

The Eastern and Midwest Incident Management Teams have merged into a single NPS incident management team to better support parks in need of help after Hurricane Sandy. The team moved to the New York Harbor area on Sunday. In addition to the core team, there are specialized support crews in the field supporting employee emergency needs, conducting damage assessments, and removing debris in the affected areas.

Over 120 National Park Service employees from 26 states and the District of Columbia are working with the team and those numbers will increase as assessments of needs come in from the field. The team is responsible for Gateway NRA, the National Parks of New York Harbor, Sagamore Hill, Fire Island, Morristown, and Thomas Edison.

Preliminary damage assessments and response to critical needs continue. The response is framed by the need to work safely and provide support for all NPS employees working in the parks.

Fort Wadsworth in Gateway is serving as the staging area for field crews and as the incident command post for the team. A US Park Police helicopter, “Eagle 2,” will be providing aerial assessments and support.

Personnel have been divided into four branches for better logistical management of this very large urban area. In addition to branch managers, resources in the field on Friday included:

Employee assistance team - The team has been working on the Service's first priority, ensuring that all NPS employees have been accounted for and their immediate needs met. A number of employee homes and vehicles have been damaged.

Facility assessment teams - Fourteen facility assessment specialists, divided into three teams, are undertaking site assessments.

Law enforcement teams - Teams from the Midwest and Southeast have been dispatched to areas identified as most in need of these resources - Fire Island, Manhattan Sites, Sandy Hook, and Morristown.

Saw teams - Teams from the Northeast Arborist Incident Response (AIR) team, Stone's River, Natchez Trace, and King's Mountain have begun work at Gateway's Sandy Hook Unit, Manhattan Sites, and Morristown.

Social media remain active. As of Friday, the Facebook site, “NPS Superstorm Sandy Response,” had been visited by over 4,000 people from 19 countries and the United States. The twitter site, “SandyResponseNPS,” continues to re-tweet incoming information from the parks and other agencies.

Sties that were still closed as of Friday were as follows: National Parks of New York Harbor (which includes all of Gateway), Sagamore Hill, Fire Island, Morristown, and Thomas Edison.

[Linda Friar, Incident Information Officer]

Great Smoky Mountains NP

Stranded Hiker Rescued From Backcountry

A 56-year-old North Carolina man was airlifted from the Appalachian Trail in Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the afternoon of Friday, November 2nd. He'd become stranded on a remote section of the trail as a result of the snowstorm that blanketed higher elevations of the park early last week. A Tennessee Highway Patrol helicopter that had been called in to assist rangers with search and rescue efforts was able to retrieve the hiker from the backcountry and transport him to the Gatlinburg-Pigeon Forge Airport in Sevierville, Tennessee. From there, he was taken by ambulance to LeConte Medical Center in Sevierville for medical evaluation. [Molly Schroer, Public Affairs Officer]

Sequoia-Kings Canyon NPs

Lengthy Search For Missing Hiker Suspended

Efforts to locate missing hiker L.C. have been suspended. The search of likely areas lasted for eight days, utilizing 56 personnel from multiple agencies - ten ground search teams, three dog teams, and five helicopters and crews. L.C. began a four-day trip into the rugged wilderness of Kings Canyon National Park at Taboose Pass on October 19th, where he was last seen by an outbound hiker. A winter storm arrived in the area on the evening of October 20th and deposited up to 12 inches of snow. L.C. was reported overdue to the Inyo County Sheriff's Department on the evening of October 23rd and the Sheriff's Department confirmed his vehicle was still at the trailhead. On October 24th, the Inyo County Sheriff's Department notified the National Park Service; search operations began later that day and continued through October 31st. Environmental conditions were challenging in the search area, which covered 48 square miles of mountainous terrain. Elevations ranged from 8,000 to 14,000 feet. Nighttime temperatures dropped to as low as 15 degrees, and snowdrifts made travel by foot difficult. Two searchers were evacuated by helicopter due to medical concerns related to environmental conditions. The incident management team, with the assistance of the state search and rescue coordinator, reviewed operations and decided to suspend the active search due to lack of information and any additional clues. [Dana Dierkes, Public Affairs Officer]

OTHER NEWS

The following stories are among those in today's edition of InsideNPS. To see the full text, including images, NPS employees should go to the InsideNPS home page ( HYPERLINK "http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=index" http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=index). Non-NPS employees can see most of them on the NPS Digest page ( HYPERLINK "http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/" http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/):

Lake Mead NRA - Lost souls were remembered on Halloween at Lake Mead National Recreation Area during a cultural interpretation of the Day of the Dead at the park's headquarters.

Herbert Hoover NHS - On Wednesday, October 24th, Herbert Hoover National Historic Site hosted the first in a fall/winter “Geology of the National Parks” lecture series.

Southeast Archeology Center - The Southeast Archeological Center hosted three events for National Archeology Day. Over 600 people were in attendance at these events, held in Tallahassee, Florida, and at DeSoto National Memorial in Bradenton, Florida.

Southeast Region - Barbara Tagger, formerly Southeast Region coordinator for the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Program, is the new site manager for Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail.

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The Morning Report is a publication of the Division of Law Enforcement, Security and Emergency Services, Washington Office, produced by the Office of Communications with the support of the Office of the Associate Director for Information Resources. Edited by Bill Halainen ( HYPERLINK "mailto:Bill_Halainen@nps.gov" Bill_Halainen@nps.gov).

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