WebProNews

Tag: emergency

  • Guatemala Earthquake Destroys Buildings, Several People Killed

    On Monday, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake shook the border between Mexico and Guatemala resulting in landslides, mudslides, and damaged buildings. According to reports, a newborn baby and three others were killed during the incident. Dozens were also injured.

    According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the quake hit at about 7:23 am ET. The quake was 37 miles deep. Although the initial report indicated a magnitude of 7.1, it was lowered to 6.9 hours later.

    Guatemalan President Otto Perez said that the earthquake caused moderate damage. Two deaths were reported in San Rafael Pie de la Cuesta in San Marcos. A newborn baby died at a hospital in San Marcos where the ceiling collapsed. Another reported death was a woman who had a heart attack, but it is still unclear if the heart attack was caused by the earthquake.

    More than 30 people were reportedly injured, many of them sustained head injuries. About 80 homes were damaged in the area and half of them were completely destroyed. A total of 36 people in San Sebastian Huehuetenango were evacuated from their homes.

    San Marcos Governor Luis Rivera said, “This quake was pretty strong. There are houses destroyed.” He also said that families panicked because of a similar incident that happened two years ago. In 2012, a 7.4 magnitude earthquake also hit the San Marcos region killing 48 people.

    News outlets in Mexico reported that the areas most severely hit were the states of Tabasco and Chiapas. Reports said that two people died in Chiapas, including a man who was killed when a wall collapsed on him. In the town of La Reforma, 48 homes were damaged; the cemetery was destroyed as well.

    Survivor Claudia Gonzales of Chiapas said, “I thought the house was going to collapse.” When she felt the quake, she ran into the streets carrying her one-year-old daughter.

    Image via YouTube

  • Mississippi Storm Overturns 25 RV Trailers

    At approximately 8 p.m. Monday night, the Santa Maria RV Park in Gautier, Mississippi experienced a strong storm which left as many as 25 RV trailers damaged or destroyed in its wake, along with downed power lines and much debris.

    Fortunately for the Gulf Coast community, the intense damage to the RV park only left two people injured badly enough to be taken to the hospital; 23 other people were treated for minor injuries at the scene.

    According to The Weather Channel, no severe storm warnings were issued when the storm blew through, perhaps adding to the amount of damage sustained in the trailer park.

    While the intensity of the damage seemingly indicates a tornado passing through, meteorologists are reluctant to support such a claim.

    “Archived radar indicates a cluster of thunderstorms accelerated and took on a bow-shaped appearance around the time of the Gautier event. This is suggestive of straight-line wind damage. This transition to a bow-echo happened quickly, as the cluster moved into Jackson County, Miss. The sharpness of the reflectivity gradient in radar imagery suggests a wet microburst also may have occurred,” reported Jon Erdman, senior meteorologist at weather.com.

    The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency and the Red Cross were on-scene quickly following the end of the storm to assess the damage and help those affected by the strong winds.

    “Well, we’re just looking at the damages, assessing what’s happened. We don’t know exactly how much damage we have yet, but have at least 25 trailers so far,” stated MEMA Area Coordinator Carolyn Nelson.

    While few residents were injured significantly, the community was still taken aback by the suddenness and severity of the storm itself:

    “Well, they say it sounds like a freight train, but I’m gonna have to say it sounds like two freight trains because it was just deafening. It was just so loud,” recalled Santa Maria RV Park resident Rob Quinn.

    Forewarned by the cacophonous noise, Quinn immediately sought to protect those most dear in his life.

    “I grabbed my wife, grabbed the dog, threw us on the couch. Thank God we did because the hold on the slide-in slammed in and we would have been killed.”

    Trailer park resident Harold Robbins also recounted his experience with the storm: “The front end [of the trailer] flipped. It launched me back into the back end. Then it flipped over on the other side and came back up in the air and landed on our car.”

    Robbins was later treated at a local hospital for minor injuries.

    Almost all of the displaced families were able to find a place to stay following the incident, but the Red Cross is still on the scene and looking to assist any victims.

    “We don’t know the exact household composition, so we’re going to try to reach out to all the folks, who had an RV here or were residents that were affected so that we can ensure that if there any additional Red Cross assistance that we can provide with clothing or food or emergency items such as toiletries, things like that,” reported Red Cross South MS Chapter Executive Jay Huffstatler.

    Image via Twitter

  • California Emergency: Fires And Drought

    California Emergency: Fires And Drought

    With the drought getting worse, California has some serious water problems, but add fires and it can be considered a state of emergency.

    California’s Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency in California on Friday. Rivers, reservoirs and lakes are the driest on record in years, and he’s asked the residents to cut water usage by 20 percent. Mandatory conservation measures are not ruled out for the future if things do not get better.

    “This takes a coming together of all the people of California to deal with this serious and prolonged event of nature,” the governor told reporters in San Francisco. “Hopefully it’ll rain eventually. But in the meantime, we have to do our part.”

    This emergency call for help is a way for the state to gain help from the federal government, giving the state more flexibility to manage the flow of water from one place to the next. The Gov. included state agencies in that water usage cut as well.

    The governor called it “perhaps the worst drought California has ever seen since records began being kept about 100 years ago.”

    January and February are typically the wettest months of the year for parts of California, but this January has been mostly dry.

    These dry conditions and lack of precipitation is sparking wildfires due to the tinderbox condition of the brush and trees. Just outside of Los Angeles is a wildfire that began its wrath on Thursday, destroying five homes and is raging in the Angeles National Forest.

    It isn’t just California that is dealing with this major lack of water, also on the dreaded drought list are 11 other states considered disaster areas, due in part to the economic strain that the lack of rain is putting on farmers. Those states are Arkansas, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, New Mexico, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • AXE Body Spray Gets School Shutdown, 8 Hospitalized

    Bro, sometimes you just gotta spray solvent aerosol deodorants under your pits to get you smelling fresh for the ladies, you know what I mean? Slicking back the hair, sporting the sunglasses, and swag can only do so much for a pre-pubescent boy to evolve into a man. Everybody knows the cool rule of school says that the more you drench yourself with a full can of Axe body spray, the more likely you’ll become alpha; it’s all about presence, even if it causes a school-wide shut down, you know that the ends justify the means.

    According to The Smoking Gun, last Wednesday at Medgar Evers College Preparatory School in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, eight students were hospitalized and two others were taken to their own family doctors after a young student released copious amounts of AXE body spray in a sixth grade classroom at 1 PM. The Department of Education released a statement confirming that the school was temporarily closed on Wednesday. Emergency crews scrambled to the school to investigate the “hazardous” smell.

    The statement from the education departments notes that “disciplinary action is pending” for the hip and happening well smelled student.

    Sadly, this is not the first time that Axe body spray has caused problems in schools around America. A Pennsylvania high school had to downright ban the spray earlier this March after a student was hospitalized after being exposed to its fumes. Back in 2012, Connecticut high school officials said that a fire alarm went off after a student used an “overabundance” of the spray in a locker room.

    Users on Reddit shared their own thoughts and personal horror stories:

    (image) (image)

    Axe kind of markets itself as the ultimate scent of seduction, with women going absolutely bonkers for men who “spray more and get more”. The following video accurately portrays exactly what will happen the more that you spray Axe body spray onto your body:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9tWZB7OUSU
    (image)

    You’ve just witnessed the “Axe Effect”, bro, get used to it. It’s known to trigger “increased attention” from “eager, and attractive female pursuers.”

    But bro, despite the official story, they’re probably just haters.

    (Images via AXE’s Facebook Page, YouTube, Reddit)

  • Google Creates Embeddable Typhoon Pablo Crisis Response Map

    Google has been pretty good about getting out crisis response maps for major storms and other natural disasters, and Typhoon Pablo is no different. Google announced the map on its Google Maps blog, and encouraged people to share it or embed it on their own sites.

    The map includes storm warnings, shelter locations, weather info, etc. It’s in English and Filipino.

    To share or embed, just hit the “share” button at the top of the embedded map above.

    The map can also be found on the Filipino Government’s Pablo site.

  • 911 Dispatcher Falls Asleep During Call: Twitter Reacts

    911 dispatcher falls asleep during a call placed on April 4th, according to the Huffington Post. A Maryland woman started to get a little concerned when her husband stopped breathing and started turning blue. Being a responsible, clear-minded adult, she picked up the phone and called 911. After explaining the scenario to the operator, she was then connected to the ambulance dispatcher.

    Instead of a helpful, friendly voice, the distraught woman was met with silence, followed by the sound of someone sawing logs. The lady made several attempts to rouse the dispatcher from this mid-shift slumber, though nothing seemed to be working. When the original operator decided to step in to help, she assumed that the snoring was coming from the woman’s husband, not from one of the 911 employees.

    Four minutes into the call, the sleepy-eyed dispatcher suddenly sprang to life, asking the woman for her address. Fortunately for the lady and her non-breathing husband, help eventually arrived and everything was a-okay. The dozing dispatcher, meanwhile, has been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation. It’s worth noting, however, that the individual in question was 17 hours into a 24 hour shift.

    Assistant Chief Scott Graham claims that, in the two dozen years he’s been on the job, this is the first time he’s encountered an operator sleeping during a call.

    The very thought of someone catching a quick nap while you’re attempting to call for help is more than a little horrifying. Folks on Twitter seem to think this sort of thing is inexcusable, and I happen to agree. You can find a small cluster of reactions to the dozing dispatcher story below.

    (image) Liyah Malay
    @candiibabs21     911 dispatcher falls asleep during a call?? Really??
    1 hour ago via TwitBird · powered by @socialditto
     Reply  · Retweet  · Favorite

    (image) Atoll_Eagle
    @Atoll_Eagle     The dispatcher who falls asleep during emergency call should be hang. The public needs to find out who he is & make him pay.
    1 hour ago via web · powered by @socialditto
     Reply  · Retweet  · Favorite

    (image) Kory C.
    @Dr_Clawson     WOWWWW that’d be an awful way to die RT @AskMen 911 Dispatcher Falls Asleep, Starts Snoring as Woman Pleads for Help: http://t.co/76P62Zlh
    1 hour ago via web · powered by @socialditto
     Reply  · Retweet  · Favorite

    (image) Jason
    @RandomBrownie     Its not really funny but i did snicker. RT “@ComplexGuide: 911 dispatcher falls asleep, starts snoring during a call. http://t.co/tWGJDxIZ”
    1 hour ago via Twitter for iPhone · powered by @socialditto
     Reply  · Retweet  · Favorite

    (image) ryan bush
    @league77     C’mon let’s spice up those 911 calls we’re boring them@HuffingtonPost 911 dispatcher falls asleep during emergency call http://t.co/O3r7A2IU
    7 minutes ago via web · powered by @socialditto
     Reply  · Retweet  · Favorite