NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

MORNING REPORT

Friday, April 17, 2009

INCIDENTS

Stones River NB

IMT Gears Up For Tornado Recovery Operations

The Type 3 IMT (Wayne Elliott, IC) that's been charged with overseeing the park's recovery from last week's tornado is currently building up its organization. Logistics section chief Rich Caldwell and operations section chief John Ashcraft, both from Mammoth Cave, and the Natchez Trace fire module, led by Shawn Nagle, arrived on April 15th. Plans section chief Bob Gray, retired from the Appalachian Trail, safety officer Jeff Galloway, AD from Big South Fork, and supply unit leader Ted Messenger, retired from Mammoth Cave, arrived on April 16th. The FMSS assessment team continued to estimate costs yesterday, and two archeologists from the Southeast Archeological Center began assessing the Hazen Monument area. They discovered artifacts dating to the Archaic period. Additional resources were expected to arrive yesterday evening and today. Portions of the park - including the tour road, the Hazen Brigade Monument, and the boundary trail - remain closed to the public. The national cemetery opened yesterday, as did the quarter-mile-long Pioneer Brigade trail near the visitor center. Other areas are open and include the McFadden Farm unit, Fortress Rosecrans, Redoubt Brannan, and the generals' headquarters sites. [Gib Backlund, Chief of Operations]

Death Valley NP

Seriously Injured Woman Rescued From Darwin Canyon

Rangers Steven Powell and Rachel Brady were on patrol in Darwin Canyon around 3:30 p.m. on the afternoon of April 13th when they heard a woman shouting for help. They quickly located the 58-year-old woman above Lower Darwin Falls and found that she was suffering an angulated compound fracture to her right ankle and a probable tibia fracture to her left leg. She also had no circulation sensation or motor function (CSM) in her right foot. At the falls, Darwin Canyon is 600 feet deep and 75 feet wide and has no radio communications. Brady made a mile-and-a-half hike to get to a point where he could make radio contact while Powell cared for the woman. Ranger Mike Nattrass assumed incident command and arranged for a California Highway Patrol helicopter with a hoist to fly to the site. Meanwhile, Powell was able to reestablish CSM's in the woman's right foot. A CHP helicopter with a crew of three arrived around 6:30 p.m., navigated into the 75-foot-wide section of the canyon, and lowered a flight paramedic to assist rangers in preparing the woman for the hoist. She was lifted out just before nightfall and flown to Southern Inyo Hospital for further treatment and evaluation. Park staff have commended the actions of the CHP crew, who displayed extraordinary flying skills in less than favorable conditions. [Aaron Shandor, Backcountry District Ranger]

Amistad NRA

Drug Smuggling Through Park Increases

The park has seen an upswing in drug smuggling over the past few weeks. On March 28th, a ranger saw marijuana bundles being transferred from a boat to a truck at one of the park's campgrounds. The Texas Department of Public Safety was contacted and asked to stop the truck on a state highway. The driver responded by making a high-speed run back to Mexico, crashing through the port of entry in Del Rio. On April 5th, Border Patrol agents attempted to contact the operator of a boat that had come from Mexican waters, but he refused to stop. His boat then hit rough water, ejecting a passenger who in turn knocked off the motor as he flew out. Rangers responded, providing medical care to the injured man, who suffered a significant avulsion to his buttocks. The boat was found to contain 338 pounds of marijuana. Both the operator and passenger were arrested. On April 14th, Border Patrol agents saw a boat from Mexico approach a popular fishing spot on the lake bank, then leave. The agents contacted a man who was parked in the area and having difficulty closing the passenger door of his pickup due to the 645 pounds of marijuana he had stuffed inside. He was arrested. Rangers on boat patrol were contacted to attempt to stop the delivery boat, but it had already made it back to Mexico. [Regina Klein Dissler, Chief Ranger]

OTHER NEWS

The following stories are among those in today's edition of InsideNPS:

Natural Resource Program Center - NRPC has launched its first photo contest for natural resource-related images. Entrants will be competing for one of 50 top-of-the-line digital cameras donated by Olympus, an NPS partner.

HYPERLINK "http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/headline.cfm?type=Announcements&id=7572" http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/headline.cfm?type=Announcements&id=7572

National Center for Recreation and Conservation - Each year the Federal Interagency Council on Trails issues a report on the status of the National Trails System. The report features changes in trail lengths, acres protected, new developments, data management, mapping, partnerships, planning actions, and even unmet needs.

HYPERLINK "http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/headline.cfm?type=Announcements&id=7576" http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/headline.cfm?type=Announcements&id=7576

Gateway NRA - William R. (Bill) Shields, 65, a retired 32-year veteran of the National Park Service, died on April 13th from multiple myeloma-related complications.

HYPERLINK "http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/headline.cfm?type=PeopleNews&id=2304" http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/headline.cfm?type=PeopleNews&id=2304

Training Calendar - A listing of upcoming training courses offered by the NPS and its partners across the nation. Added today are two TEL broadcasts (a legal update and a law enforcement refresher), a course on wildland fire origin and cause determination, and two offerings of the flashpoint for fixed assets subsystems training course,

HYPERLINK "http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/headline.cfm?type=Conferences&id=1720" http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/headline.cfm?type=Conferences&id=1720

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Submission standards for the Morning Report can be found at the following web site:

HYPERLINK "http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=viewnpsnewsarticle&type=Announcements&id=3363" http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=viewnpsnewsarticle&type=Announcements&id=3363

Prepared by the Division of Law Enforcement, Security and Emergency Services, Washington Office, with the support of the Office of the Chief Information Officer and Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. Edited by Bill Halainen ( HYPERLINK "mailto:Bill_Halainen@nps.gov" Bill_Halainen@nps.gov).

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