A very strange spring

Our spring has not been typical in any way.  We had a male hummingbird show up early last week - about two days later than we noted their arrival last year.  He comes back every day -  but we didn't get any photos because we were waiting for the new camera lens.  Now that it's here, Cheryl took some outdoor shots after the landscaping crew finished pruning and cleaning up for us.

First up, the native flame azalea, which started blooming the day after the little one we showed  10 days ago.

 

Right after displaying this glorious orangeness, we started having severe thunderstorms, cold, then even snow.  We were a little concerned about these after the winds last year snapped off a good part of one plant, but there they are, still a colorful spot just behind where the meditation bench is to go.

The rhododendron are coming out now.

 

This next photo of them, taken from the driveway, shows the "wildflower meadow" in front of the raised garden bed and walkway to the meditation bench-to-be.  It is already out of control  with Multiflora Rose and all manner of weeds.  We've been out to work on this twice already:  we just need a new plan!

 

 Now we'll have to try capture a hummer - Lily hasn't noticed them yet, by the way.

A Mountain Top Rescue Story

Late Monday afternoon, the Reems Creek FD was alerted for a call to assist a lost and medically incapacitated hiker. The county 911 center had received a call from a semi-conscious caller who was unable to communicate much other than the words "lost" and "seizure." Fortunately, the county has one of the "smart" 911 centers that can automatically get the coordinates of any cell phone that calls 911 and it was determined that the call came from a spot in the mountains above the Reems Creek Fire District. When the cell phone coordinates were plotted on the map, it appeared the location was about 5 miles from the nearest road and was near a trail that goes to a mountain top where a Forest Service fire tower used to be located. The trailhead for that path is on the Blue Ridge Parkway, but the hiker was about 5 miles from the Parkway and it would have made for a prolonged and difficult carry-out across very rugged terrain if the rescue had been attempted from the Parkway end. The shortest way to get the caller's location was straight up the mountainside from a point near the headwaters of Reems Creek.

With a caravan of two ATVs carrying a basket stretcher and medical supplies, an initial crew of 6 firefighter/EMTs set out on a series of old ATV trails and logging roads to try to get to the point on the map where the call came from. It was a difficult trek through boulder fields and wet stream beds, with frequent stops to chain saw trees that had fallen across the trail. One of the ATVs broke down along the way and was stuck between rocks on the trail so that the other ATV couldn't get around it. Getting the broken ATV off the trail proved to be an adventure in its own right, complete with stirring up a nest of angry hornets. After getting the ATV off the trail, its gear had to be loaded onto the remaining ATV while its crew continued the uphill trip on foot.

After about an hour, when the convoy finally reached the coordinates, a dog barking about 50 yards off the trail alerted them to the location of the downed hiker. An unconscious woman was found face down on the ground with some serious medical issues. The crews were then split up with three EMTs staying to start patient care while the other three took off to see if the old fire tower location would make a suitable helicopter landing spot. (Norris was one of the three that stayed for patient care). It had been determined that the trek back down the mountain with an unconscious stretcher patient would take several hours, while a helicopter was already in the air (although it was initially only planning to help us search for the lost hiker).

The crew that went to the old fire tower found that the small flat spot at the top of the mountain was still clear, but that saplings had grown up around it that would prevent a helicopter landing. The crew quickly went to work with chain saws and leveled most of the trees growing around the landing spot. The helicopter hovered over the site while the pilot pointed out the trees he wanted cut. Eventually the helicopter landed on a flat spot that was not much bigger than the footprint of the helicopter. While this took some time, it also allowed the pilot to burn off some of the fuel as he was worried about the take-off weight at the altitude of the pad, which was over 5000 ft (the higher the altitude, the harder the helicopter has to work to take off).

By this time, the crew working on the patient had started IVs and administered drugs and oxygen, and the patient's condition had stabilized somewhat. Another crew on ATVs had made it up the mountain at this point and helped carry the basket stretcher to where the ATVs were parked on the trail. The ATVs then headed to the landing site, but more downed trees had to be cut along the way. The pilot was glad to see the convoy arrive as he had begun to get nervous that a gust of mountain top wind might blow his aircraft over the side of the mountain.

One other factor to be dealt with was the patient's dog. It was a service dog that helps the patient with her medical issues. The dog was very glad to see the rescuers and understood that they were there to help, but it would not be allowed to go on the helicopter. There was concerned that the dog would be very upset when his owner disappeared into the sky, but one of the RCFD medics took over the job of dog wrangler and quickly became the dog's newest best friend. Fortunately, the dog remained calm (but concerned) as the helicopter took off and he willingly rode back down the mountain with the rescuers.

Understandably, Norris didn't have much chance to take any pictures until the transfer of the patient to the helicopter was complete, so much of this story is undocumented by photos. This photo shows how small the flat knob on top of the mountain really is. You can't say enough about the kind of flight crew that is willing to put their bird down under such hazardous conditions. The crew is part of Mission Hospital's MAMA fleet (Mountain Area Medical Airlift). You can see that spring has not yet arrived at the 5000 ft level as the trees are all still bare.

Part of the 360 degree mountain top view as seen through the tail rotor.

Getting ready to load the patient.
The service dog and its new friend. Five hours after receiving the initial call, all crews and equipment were back in the station and the dog was on its way to the hospital to be reunited with its owner.

Norris also took a couple of short videos. The first is taken after the patient has been loaded and the helicopter is getting ready to depart.

Lastly, the helicopter is leaving and the FD crew gets ready to make the long trip back down the mountain, with a stop along the way to retrieve the broken-down ATV. The ATV trip down was so steep that several stops had to be made to allow the brakes to cool off before resuming the trip.

Without the modern technology of GPS and automatic cell phone coordinates, this story might have turned out differently as the the victim might not have been found for some time. On the other hand, there is still no substitute for the local knowledge of the firemen who have lived and hiked in the area all their lives and know every trail and path through the mountains.

Spotted behind the bird feeder

As we finished our Sunday evening meal and the light was fading, Cheryl looked out in the direction of the bird feeders and noticed a brilliant orange glow. Was it a trick of the sunset?


So grabbing the camera before the light was gone, we made an investigation and found blossoms!


A baby Flame Azalea has emerged where there was no Flame Azalea before, on that bare patch behind the feeder, to brighten up our woodsy landscape like no other plant does!


We had learned these are tricky plants to propagate, and the ones you buy are hybrids, so not quite the same as what grows naturally. The older larger ones we have growing on the far side of the property from our house have buds but no blossoms yet, so this was a real surprise.

Lily Update

A few weeks ago, Norris's grand-niece Kheley (who helped raise Lily as a very young kitten) re-posted an old picture of Lily and wondered how she was doing. We are finally getting around to taking some new pictures so Kheley and the rest of the Wilsons can see how she is doing. Lily still loves to play. She has a number of toys she likes, but the feather toy on a fishing pole string is one of her favorites. She loves to catch it in mid air, then carry it around the house in her teeth (pulling Norris or Cheryl with her).

Here you can see a better shot of her stretched out a little. She seems to have stopped growing at about 8 pounds now, but she still eats twice as much as the other cats, so she could still have another growth spurt.

Here is a shot of Lily and Lu sharing a mouse toy on our bed. You can see she is still a lot smaller than Lu, who weighs over 13 lbs. Lily is only 2/3 his size. Whenever we aren't playing with Lily, she is usually pestering Lu to play with her.
Here Lily is taking a short break from playing with the mouse toy while she catches her breath. She still has the pretty blue eyes. Lu is partly off the edge of the right side of the picture.
This is one of those rare quiet moments for Lily, resting on her princess pillows on the sofa.

Biltmore Search Exercise

Norris spent most of last week participating in a search exercise sponsored by Buncombe County (our home county) and the State of NC. The exercise is run every two years on a remote part of the Biltmore estate that covers several thousand acres of rugged terrain and farmland. In addition to being a chance for Search and Rescue teams to get some practice in tracking lost persons, it also is a chance to exercise local Incident Management Teams that would oversee any type of large scale disaster in our area. The photo below is of the small town of trailers that reported to the command post for the exercise. Most of these trailers were not for housing people, but rather housed various command functions for the exercise (communications, logistics, planning, command staff, etc.). The search teams that responded were actually housed in large tents that are located a few hundred yards away, out of view of the camera.

Instead of being a volunteer participant in the exercise, Norris was actually employed by the county to help run the communications for the entire event. He, along with one other person, were responsible for setting up the county's mobile communications bus (including erecting the 35 foot antenna mast attached to the bus).
Communications duties also included operating the radio cache trailer, a glorified horse trailer that stores over a hundred portable radios that can be issued to searchers (or other disaster workers). The trailer is heated and air conditioned and has its own generator, so you could sleep in the trailer if need be on a prolonged disaster.
Inside the trailer, this is a picture of the work bench/desk where radios brought in by the searchers from various non-local jurisdictions can be re-programmed for channels to be used in the search.
The other side of the trailer houses state-owned radios that can be issued as needed, although the need to keep good track of the radios is apparent when you consider that each of these radios cost up to $5000 (then multiple by 100 radios to see how much the inventory is worth).
As part of the support to our small city of rescuers, the Greensboro FD sent their mobile shower trailer so all the searchers could have hot showers all week.
The hub of the activity was the large tent we called the circus tent. It served as a dining hall as well as a place for meetings. It can be heated or cooled, but our weather was about perfect, so we didn't need either. The support trailer to the left houses an industrial size kitchen on wheels, complete with refrigerators, freezers, ovens, stoves, and counter space to prepare food.

The Red Cross also provided one of their kitchen trailers which served as the food warming station. The food was good and plentiful all week. Searchers could get food whenever they returned from their field assignments.
Lunchtime. This photo shows just half of the inside of the tent.We even had a hospital on wheels to support the event. This hospital bus is a new acquisition for the City of Asheville and Buncombe County.
The hospital bus has 16 beds or stretcher spaces. This is the view from the central nurses station looking at the rear half of the bus.
The nurses station is seen below. The bus has been used once so far in a real emergency at the fire in Asheville last summer that killed one fireman and injured a number of others.
Here, one of the K9 search teams gets a last minute briefing from the Sheriff's Dept before departing on their mission. The scenario started with two "special needs" adults being abducted at gun point from the nearby Farmer's Market. A SWAT team went into the woods and located and captured the armed abductors, but the two victims fled deeper into the woods. The victims were afraid of the searchers and hid from them, making it harder to locate them. In reality, the two "victims" were always aware of where the searchers were and tried to stay one step ahead of them to prolong the fun.
Every 12 hours a new Incident Command team took over the operation. As communications support, Norris and his co-worker in communications were part of each of these teams. Each 12 hour shift included several planning meetings, such as the one pictured below, where each member of the command staff went over maps and assignments covered by the previous shifts, in order to come up with a plan for the next shift coming on duty. Over 300 participants were involved in the exercise.
The two lost victims were finally located around noon on Saturday and the exercise was able to wind down. For more details on the exercise, as covered in the local press along with 15 additional pictures, you can check out the link below.

http://www.mountainx.com/article/41715/Buncombe-County-Emergency-Management-hosts-full-scale-search-practice