The Morning Report for Wednesday, October 13, 2004

INCIDENTS

Gulf Islands National Seashore (FL,MS)
Update on Hurricane Ivan Recovery Operations

Over the weekend, the incident management team suspended most field operations and relocated some 100 incident personnel to a more sheltered location due to the first deluge of rain since Hurricane Ivan hit on September 16th. Tropical Storm Matthew came ashore well west of Florida, but still dumped two to three inches of rain on the area.

On Saturday, around 50 incident personnel were moved by boat from Fort Pickens on Santa Rosa Island, including members of the cultural assessment team, and 86 workers camping on the mainland were sent to dry locations. The cultural assessment team also moved many of the artifacts that have been recovered and managed — artillery, pottery, textiles, glass — to a dry environment in battery casements and dried-in offices on the island.

A couple of crews were recently demobilized and plans are being developed to transition to a Type 4 team to continue limited operations on a variety of tasks not yet completed when the current IMT detail ends tomorrow.

Nearly complete is the removal of the enormous amount of rubble and large-sized debris from priority areas at Naval Live Oaks Visitor Center and Headquarters and at Fort Barrancas. Much of the cleanup was concentrated in the high pubic use areas, such as parking lots, picnic areas, and associated trails. The section of trail between the visitor center and Fort Barrancas is cleared and crews are now removing debris from the section of trail and parking lot at Advance Redoubt of Fort Barrancas.

Aside from the debris removal operations, the following gives a brief summary of accomplishments and ongoing work:

Naval Live Oaks — A contractor has almost completed rebuilding the outdoor deck at the visitor center with boards made of plastic, which are more durable than wood and less vulnerable to future hurricanes. After concentrating debris removal efforts in the large visitor parking area, crews are now focusing their labors in the picnic area and along an administrative fire road. A salvage company has been identified which will remove the large number of damaged appliances that floated on to the Naval Live Oaks area from across the Santa Rosa Sound and are piled in the parking area. Because of the widespread debris throughout a two-mile section of south shoreline at the visitor center, a contract will be let to accomplish this challenging task. Rehabilitation inside the visitor center is also underway. The park is estimating that the visitor center will open in one to two weeks.
Fort Pickens/Santa Rosa Island — Ongoing projects include continuing repairs to the water supply system, removing hazardous trees, chipping wood in campground and other areas, making temporary road repairs, and assisting employees with office supply removal. Masons are continuing mitigation work on historic buildings. Wood debris that washed on shore was collected and slash piles were established. About 30 of the 50 ten-foot-high piles have been burned. The cultural assessment team is developing plans for transporting most of the archival collection to a secure location after cleaning and stabilizing thousands of artifacts.
Fort Barrancas — Carpenters are restoring sections of fence surrounding the forts and roof repairs are being made on the visitor center.

Several day use locations outside the team's objectives also received extensive damage. Rehabilitation has not yet begun on facilities located at Okaloosa Island, Perdido Key, and Santa Rosa. A contractor is scheduled to begin debris removal at Okaloosa.
Throughout the recovery effort, specialists and technical experts visited the park to conduct assessments of the historic and cultural resources and evaluate the integrity of many of the structures. The park has been visited by the Florida state historic preservation officer, archeologists, historic architects, and structural engineers.[Submitted by Nancy Gray, IO, Eastern IMT]

Grand Canyon National Park (AZ)
Short Haul Rescue of Falling Victim

Just after 1 p.m. on October 4th, park dispatch received a cell phone call reporting that a man had fallen into the canyon near Mather Point. Responding personnel pinpointed the location on the west side of the point directly below Rim Trail.

K.S., 88, of Torrance, California, survived the 150-foot fall, which occurred while he was scrambling off-trail on exposed terrain.

Ranger Greg Moore reached K.S. via a technical rope lowering and immediately secured him. While K.S.'s injuries were being treated, the park helicopter was prepared for a short haul rescue.

Paramedics Nate Becker and Marc Yeston were lifted from the road near Mather Point and flown to the accident site. Pilot Greg Haufle and short haul spotter Mike Minton then delivered additional EMS equipment to the paramedics.

Once K.S. was packaged on a rigid backboard and placed in a Bauman bag stretcher, he was lifted out and flown directly to the South Rim helibase with Becker as his attendant. K.S. was then transferred to a Classic Air Ambulance, flown to Flagstaff Medical Center, and admitted to the center's critical care unit.
[Submitted by Ken Phillips, Incident Commander]

President's Park (White House) (DC)
IMF/World Bank and Iraq War Demonstrations

On Saturday, October 2nd, Park Police officers dealt with protestors who were demonstrating in the area during International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings and with a group called the Iraqi Pledge of Resistance, which had a permit to march from Arlington National Cemetery to the Ellipse to protest the war in Iraq.

Members of the latter held a rally at the Ellipse at the end of their march. At the conclusion of the rally, the demonstrators expressed an interest in delivering a message to President Bush, so crossed over an outer perimeter fence on the Ellipse and sat down in an expression of nonviolent civil disobedience.

After receiving a series of warnings to leave the closed area, 28 of them were arrested and taken to Anacostia Station, where they were processed and later released.
There were no arrests associated with the limited number of protestors for the IMF/World Bank meetings.[Submitted by Sgt. Scott Fear, US Park Police]

Point Reyes National Seashore (CA)
Surfer Injured by Shark

A surfer at Limantour Beach was struck by a shark on the morning of Sunday, October 10th.

The man was on his surfboard with his legs hanging over the sides of the board when the shark grabbed his lower leg. He reported that he hit the six- to eight-foot long shark on the head, which caused it to release his leg, then paddled to shore on his own.

A county helicopter evacuated him from the park and took him to a local hospital, where his injuries were treated.

The park responded by closing the waters offshore of Limantour Beach and the adjacent Drakes Beach areas. No other shark sightings have been reported since the incident. The closure will continue through the weekend. The areas will be reopened to swimming, wading, and surfing if no additional sharks are sighted.

Based on reported behavior, park officials believe the incident involved a great white shark. White sharks are often seen in coastal waters off the park in the fall, when high numbers of juvenile California sea lions, northern elephant seals, and harbor seals visit beaches and rocky shores.

The last shark incident at Point Reyes occurred at Tomales Point in 1996 on an abalone diver who also survived his injuries. South of Point Reyes at Stinson Beach, a shark attack occurred in May of 2002, also prompting closure of the waters where the incident occurred.

From 1950 through 1999, an average of 2.1 shark attacks occurred per year along the California coast. Of the 106 attacks during this period, eleven were fatal.
[Submitted by Don Neubacher, Superintendent]

FIRE MANAGEMENT

NIFC/NPS Fire and Aviation Management
National Fire Situation Highlights — Wednesday, October 13, 2004

Preparedness Level 2

There were 128 new starts yesterday. None escaped initial attack. Very high to extreme fire indices were reported in California and Nebraska.

Weather Forecast

High pressure over the Pacific Northwest and low pressure off the southern California coast will produce warm, dry weather for most of the West.

Warnings and Watches

A RED FLAG WARNING has been posted today for moderate or stronger northeast to east winds, low relative humidity levels, and generally poor relative humidity recovery for mid-slope and above for the Eureka, Sacramento and Monterey areas in California.

NPS Fires

For a brief supplemental narrative on each fire, click on the bar with the arrow. Internal NPS readers can link directly to full reports on each fire by clicking on the notepad icon; public readers of the Morning Report can obtain similar information by going to http://www.nps.gov/fire/news

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National/State Team Commitments

Newly listed fires (on this report) appear below in boldface. Changes in the status of a fire (type of team, change from a fire to a complex, etc.) are also noted in boldface.

Fires are sorted by type of team; teams are listed in alphabetical order within each type by the IC's last name.

State	Agency	Team	IC	Fire/Incident and Location	10/12	10/13	% Con	Est Con

CA	State	T1	Streblow *	Rumsey Fire, Sonoma-Lake Napa Unit	3,800	29,695	5	10/16

FL	FEMA	T2	Muir	Hurricane Response, Saufley Field NAS	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
CA	USFS	T2	Wendt	Power Fire, Eldorado NF	418	475	50	10/19
FL	NPS	T2	Wissinger	Hurricane Response, Gulf Islands NS	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

* CDF team

National Resource Commitments

Day	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed
Date	10/7	10/8	10/9	10/10	10/11	10/12	10/13

Crews	34	48	43	19	19	60	71
Engines	37	43	40	22	25	70	137
Helicopters	16	16	12	10	0	13	19
Air Tankers	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Overhead	484	450	426	289	418	498	565

Further Information

This report is meant to present just highlights of the current fire situation. Two other NIFC sites provide much greater detail:

Full NIFC Situation Report (PDF file) — http://www.nifc.gov/news/sitreprt.pdf
National Fire News — http://www.nifc.gov/fireinfo/nfn.html

Information on NPS Fire and Aviation Management (FAM) and on park fires can be found at:
FAM — http://www.nps.gov/fire
Park fires — http://www.nps.gov/fire/news

OPERATIONAL NOTES

Environmental Quality Division
DO on Resource Damage Assessment and Resoration in Effect

Director's Order #14, Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration, was signed by the director on September 28th.

This DO and the accompanying damage assessment and restoration handbook provide standardized policy, guidance and procedures on implementing the Park System Resource Protection Act (16 U.S..C. 19jj) and related statutory authorities that allow the NPS to recover civil damages and agency costs from responsible parties that destroy, cause the loss of, or injure park resources.

The damages recovered under these authorities are used to reimburse agency costs and to take actions to restore, replace, or acquire the equivalent of the resources lost or injured. A copy of DO 14 and Handbook can be found at http://data2.itc.nps.gov/npspolicy/DOrders.cfm and on the Environmental Quality Division web site http://www1.nrintra.nps.gov/eqd/index.htm.

For inquires regarding this DO, its policies and procedures, contact Daniel_Hamson@nps.gov.

[Submitted by Daniel Hamson, Daniel_Hamson@nps.gov, 202-513-7194]

PARKS AND PEOPLE

Yosemite National Park (CA)
Ed Visnovske Named FLETC Honor Graduate of the Year

Ed Visnovske, a ranger at Yosemite National Park, has received the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center's (FLETC) Honor Graduate of the Year Award for 2003 for attaining the highest overall average in fitness, firearms, and classroom skills. Visnovske is the first NPS employee to receive the award in the program's 14-year history.

Director Mainella presented Visnovske with the award at a ceremony last week at FLETC, saying, "Ed was trained to do what America needs him to do...and he accepted that challenge spectacularly. He labored hard to get here and harder to finish at the top. Because of his work and experience at FLETC, he now knows more of the strength and weakness of the society that we live in. Because of Ed's training, he can better adapt his skills to fit the unique role to which he is about to return."

Visnovkse achieved a 98.79% academic average, besting some 8,745 other basic training graduates during 2003.

Upon graduation from FLETC, Visnovske was assigned to Yosemite NP, where he has worked since 1999 as a seasonal and permanent ranger. He has established himself as a critical asset to Yosemite's search and rescue team and has been involved in hundreds of rescue incidents, usually as a team leader. He is a renowned ranger instructor in search and rescue and whitewater rescue techniques.

Other agencies that have had honor graduates include the U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Capitol Police, U.S. Customs Service, Defense Criminal Investigative Service, General Services Administration, Department of State, and the U.S. Coast Guard.

Natural Resource Stewardship and Science
Passing of Former Chief Scientist Robert M. Linn

Robert M. Linn, 78, former chief scientist of the National Park Service and co-founder of the George Wright Society, died at his home on October 10th following a long struggle with cancer.

A native of the Cleveland area, Bob trained as a botanist and received his PhD in that subject from Duke University. Earlier, while an undergraduate at Kent State University, he began a lifelong association with Isle Royale National Park, the place he loved more than any other in the world. While still in college he began working for the National Park Service on the island, holding a variety of positions in the 1950s and early 1960s.

While at Isle Royale, he founded the park's cooperating association and participated in some of the first winter research sessions of the park's renowned long-term moose-wolf study.

He continued his NPS career in the Washington Office, rising to the position of chief scientist under the directorship of George Hartzog.

Bob finished his NPS career in the late 1970s by helping to create a cooperative parks studies unit at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, the mainland headquarters of Isle Royale.

After his retirement in 1980, he co-founded (with Ted Sudia) the George Wright Society and established it in the neighboring town of Hancock, Michigan. Through great personal effort, he sustained the fledgling GWS in its early years, and became the organization's first executive director in 1990, a position he held until 1998. He continued to work daily for GWS until August of this year.

All Bob's work for the George Wright Society -- 24 years of full-time labor -- was done entirely on a volunteer basis. A man of great modesty and personal integrity, he preferred to work quietly in the background and let others take the bows.

Bob Linn spent his life promoting better research, resource management, and education in and about national parks and other protected places, and always defended the resource values that lie at the heart of the parks.

Anyone wishing to make a contribution to Bob's memory may do so to Omega House, a hospice facility currently under construction that will serve the Houghton-Hancock community. The address is: Omega House, 920 W. Water St., Hancock, MI 49930.[Submitted by Abby Miller, Abby_Miller@nps.gov]

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Submission standards for the Morning Report can be found on the left side of the front page of InsideNPS. All reports should be submitted via email to Bill Halainen at Delaware Water Gap NRA, with a copy to your regional office and a copy to Dennis Burnett in Division of Law Enforcement and Emergency Services, WASO.

Prepared by the Division of Law Enforcement and Emergency Services, WASO, with the cooperation and support of Delaware Water Gap NRA.