Daily Briefing

A blocker rig struck at a highway scene — the day's reminder that the work zone is the hazard

By The FirstResponders Desk

Good morning. A Mesquite fire truck was struck while crews worked a non-injury crash just outside the city early Friday, and two people were transported to hospital, the Mesquite Fire Department said, as reported by Firefighter Close Calls. Crews were working the crash around 4 a.m. using the rig as a blocker when the second crash happened. If you run blocker on a highway today, this is the day's argument for it — and for staging the apparatus between you and traffic, not beside it.

For emergency management and anyone working the water: the National Weather Service in Seattle has Storm Warnings out for the coastal waters from Cape Flattery to Cape Shoalwater, both the inshore and 10-to-60-nautical-mile zones. The NWS in Portland has Storm Warnings for the Columbia River Bar and the waters from Cape Shoalwater, Washington, to Cape Falcon, Oregon. The NWS office at Ruskin has a Flood Warning for DeSoto County, Florida. ABC News reports the National Hurricane Center says Tropical Storm Pena has formed in the Pacific south of Hawaii.

A large block of satellite fire detections was reported Friday but is not confirmed by any agency: 424 over Texas, 234 over Louisiana, 110 each over Mississippi and Alabama, 49 over Tennessee, 32 over Florida and 29 over South Carolina. Treat these as unverified heat signatures, not as working incidents, until a local agency puts eyes on them.

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