Posts by Matthew Poole
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Hard News: Where nature may win, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
Welcome.
And for anyone interested, how CIMS and ICS work is actually quite fascinating. They're the ultimate model of scalable management, from a single police officer at a minor car crash wearing every hat to a California wildfire with every possible role filled by a different person, experts being flown in from overseas (that's mostly our contribution when we send people to the US, managers who can slot straight into the ICS model because it's so close to CIMS), and tens-of-millions of dollars of operational and logistical budget. -
I see that the suggestion that the rescuers are sissies is no longer veiled implication in Granny. Comparisons with Strongman are pretty nonsense, from what I've been able to find online, given that at Strongman the rescuers were at the entrance to the collapsed tunnel section within four minutes of the explosion. Nobody knew there'd been an explosion at Pike River for the better part of an hour, and even all tooled up for the track at Beijing Usain Bolt (I know, I know, sprinter, etc) wouldn't be able to do 2.5km in four minutes.
It's also interesting to compare the Herald's reporting of these comments, lacking completely in context or explanation of the differences, with those of the Otago Daily Times, which explores the reasons why the situations shouldn't be compared and why there is such circumspection now. -
Hard News: Where nature may win, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
Sofie, as per my post above, the Police are in charge. That means they have authority to decide who does or doesn't speak to the media about operational matters. I didn't see the piece in question, but it's possible that Knowles (I assume) was concerned that Pike River management could be digging themselves a legal hole by answering a particular question in the media. Given that this is very likely to end up before a Coroner, what's said to the press needs to be considered in light of being evidence.
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On the issue of "Why the Police?", it's to do with the National Civil Defence Emergency Management Plan. NZ uses the Coordinated Incident Management System (in the US known as the Incident Control System, or ICS) for command and control of emergency responses. A key concept is the lead agency, which is the agency with ultimate responsibility for management and resolution of an incident. They may not be doing the operational work (as we're seeing at Pike River, where the Lead Agency is the Police but it will be Mines Rescue doing the stuff at the sharp end), but whoever is their representative in the position of Incident Controller is the person who carries the can if things go to shit.
The Plan gives Police Lead Agency status by default unless there's another Lead Agency designated either in the Plan or through an MOU - for example, it has been agreed that in the event of an arson it's Fire's job until the fire is contained and then it falls back to Police as a crime scene. And DOC is in charge at a whale stranding. For better or worse, that's how it is, and it avoids what were historically nasty, unproductive turf fights about who was in charge. The IC can call on whatever specialist advice they require, and delegate some of their responsibilities to an Operations Manager, a Logistics Manager, a Safety Officer, and a multitude of other, increasingly-specialised, sub-delegations. So just because the IC is a cop doesn't mean that it's a cop who's making the technical decisions. The Operations Manager slot is probably being filled by a Mines Rescue manager, and it's that person who deals with the "How will we do it?" question. The IC is about the "What do we need to do?" question, which in this case is pretty obvious: "Rescue or recover the trapped miners with minimal risk to rescuers." -
3 days to find a spark free robot for reconnaissance?
Try reading about intrinsic safety before you get ideas about just how easy it ought to be to find such a thing. Real intrinsic safety, of the quality necessary for operation in a methane-filled environment, is hard. It's expensive as hell to create a truly intrinsically safe device of the complexity of a robot needed for this kind of activity.
Hell, intrinsic safety is sufficiently expensive that the Fire Service doesn't even have exclusively intrinsically-safe radios out in the field. Plenty of "normal" ones are still on trucks all over the country, and have to be turned off if the fire fighter carrying it is working around flammable/explosive gases. The risk is minimal, but still sufficient to justify the precaution.If companies that contract to Watercare Services have wee robots that go down our sewers (with cameras attached for viewing), why can’t these also go down the mine to get an idea of wtf is going on down there?
Almost certainly not intrinsically safe, and if they are they're likely not ruggedised to operate in a mine collapse situation and probably aren't capable of being controlled at 2.5-plus-kilometres remote from the operator. Those're some pretty specific, specialised, demanding requirements, and sewer operators don't really need to worry about them. The gases in sewers tend to be toxic or asphyxiating, not flammable to the point where intrinsic safety is an issue.
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Hard News: I'm not a "f***ing cyclist".…, in reply to Russell Brown,
In my mind, I don’t think it is too strong to suggest that the Council and some of its employees are criminally negligent and directly responsible for Jane’s death.
More precisely, the members of the former Eastern and Bays Community Board, who chose political convenience and personal preference over safety and blocked the proposed change. I personally find it ludicrous that they had any say in the matter whatsoever, but even the Ken Baugley is reported as having said that E&BCB were the reason this wasn't fixed in '06.
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Hard News: Where nature may win, in reply to Glenn Pearce,
Glenn, they found no fault with the decision made by the officer in charge on the scene based on the information available to him, though. The fault was in communicating to that officer the knowledge that was present at the communications centre. So it's a perfect example.
And, in any case, the message holds. Read the rest of that comment for an example with which even a picky bugger like you will have difficulty finding problems. -
Have to say, the whole recycling thing that's going on with the mine non-rescue effort at present reminds me very much of this cartoon. Very, very much.
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Hard News: Where nature may win, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I hope TPTB are watching Knowles, because he’s precisely the kind of person who I would want to see in one of the roles with Commissioner in the title. NZ Police (and the entire NZ establishment, by extension) could not ask for a better public face for this incident.
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Hard News: Where nature may win, in reply to Russell Brown,
Oh go on, it'll be good for your blood pressure. And I want to know just how eloquently one can flame that kind of drop-kick in 140 characters *smiles innocently*