TransCanada Supports Revolutionary Emergency Response Portal
Preparing first responders for rare emergencies
“Every fire chief needs to have this on their phone”
Over the course of a 40-year career as a firefighter, Billy Goldfeder has responded to virtually every kind of emergency, from fires and medical emergencies to search-and-rescue operations, hazardous material spills and natural disasters. As the Deputy Chief of the Loveland-Symmes Fire Department in Loveland, Ohio, he says the key to effective fire response is knowing what you are facing and having the skills and equipment in place to deal with it. The biggest uncertainties for first responders, he says, are the emergencies they seldom, if ever, encounter. This includes a natural disaster like a tornado or a hurricane, or an industrial event like an incident involving a pipeline.
“We call these low-frequency, high-risk events because they’re something you don’t see every day,” he says. “They can present a big risk, but because they are so low frequency, we are not always attuned to deal with them. Sometimes, you don’t even know there’s a pipeline there because it’s been under the ground for 30 years and if it leaks you are the first team to secure the scene and you need to know what you doing.”
For Dep. Chief Goldfeder, preparation for an unusual event like a pipeline incident has two simple components: “The first step is to identify if whether you have got a pipeline in your district,” he says. “The second step is once you identified it, is to get some training so you know what to do when you get there.”
