Long day...

Yeah, we're finished! I definitely could not do this type of thing every day. Just the highlights: The fire that my partner and I had to extinguish was a barbeque that was burning out of control. There is a regimented way you are supposed to approach the fire (for the training anyway)... so, Laura (my TSA agent partner) and I approached the fire in the proper way, and started using the fire extinguisher. The firefighters pulled a fast one on me, and only gave me a canister that was about 1/3 full, so I extinguished the fire part way, and had to call my "back up":) They went in, did their job, then the fire miraculously came back on again, so I had to go in *again* and put it out:) It was a good experience, but I don't think anyone is going to have a "back up" if their at -home backyard barbeque gets out of control.:)) We did lots of other drills. Our scenario was that a heavy monsoon hit Phoenix, and there were flash floods, heat waves, plus the utilities were off to the whole city. Trees were down everywhere, houses were destroyed, people were dead or dying or just needed help. We had to search the houses for dead bodies, mark the "people" (mannequins) with "I" (needs immediate care), "D" (delayed care) or "D" for dead. Then we had to search houses for survivors, etc. There is a correct way to search a house that is perfectly dark.... (because it is night time and the electricity and gas has already been checked by us before we enter). We have to mark the door that we have entered into in a certain way, then only go to the right or left for the entire way around that particular floor until we come back to the door we had marked. We found babies with missing appendages:( and people we had to carry out in a certain proper way. We did lots of other drills today too like getting someone out from under a wall or car by "cribbing", and prior to doing all of this setting up a "chain of command" kind of like in the Army, which we spent four hours on yesterday! They (the Federal Government of course) developed this chain of command *after* 9/11 so that any rescue groups/fire/police etc. all use the same chain of command in a natural disaster or even if they are monitoring the Super Bowl, for example. It was 98 degrees today and I got fried. Jasmine just said "Mommy, why is your face so red".:) I am so glad I don't have to do this regularly... plus I forgot my Alleve!! I would have to take two more *levels* to be "deployable", but I don't know how I would ever be deployable with Jasmine.... So ready to go to bed right now:)