Directing Traffic

I could not get into work very well. With working all weekend at the HazMat class I felt like I needed some time off. I left work around two in the afternoon and headed to Colfax. I figured I would get the coroners ID cards finished. I had to go to the human resources office to get what I needed from them. While I was in the office I heard some stuff over my pager. Main street was blocked off because of power, cable, and telephone lines across all lanes of traffic.

I ran across the street to the fire department and donned my turn outs. I was with Carl and we went to the scene which was right near the courthouse. We found out no power lines were involved, but I saw one of the telephone lines with probably around one-hundred pair of wires heavily damaged.

Carl told me to get Rescue-Eleven and go to the Canyon and Main street to block it off from Northbound traffic. At the station Tim came with me and I used Rescue to block the two Northbound lanes of traffic. Then I stood on the corner of the intersection. I saw some problems of people not merging quick enough, so I put out some cones to merge the people to the right-hand lane so they could turn on to Canyon and then on to Mill street to make their way around the obstruction. The only problem came with the fact that semi-trucks had to make the corner. They only way they could make it is if we stopped traffic up the road a little way to give them room for the turn.

This would work out okay, but after a short while it became clear traffic direction was necessary. So I went out to the middle of the intersection and started to direct traffic. It was pretty easy. I just made sure I knew where cars were so I did not get hit and so I could get the big trucks on to Canyon without many problems. For the most part it worked okay. Soon Barney from the city PD came and directed traffic at Canyon and Mill street. The only problem was that we did not have portable radios. So I would relay my needs to Tim who was on the corner of the intersection still. He would radio to Jamie who was near Barney. This was working even though it was not the optimal situation.

At one point Andy from Public Works came by and gave me a hand-held stop sign to help me in directing traffic. At one point a girl who was on Canyon was stopped. I had the people going North on Main turning on to Canyon and the Southbound Main street traffic was moving. Then the girl started to go. I yelled “HEY, HEY, HEY STOP!!!” Then I slapped my hand on the stop sign several times and told her that it means “STOP!” Once the Southbound traffic was done I allowed her to go.

A couple times due to bad communication we had problems getting the big trucks turned on to Canyon. A couple of them I had to get to go down a block or two and them make the corner.

We were there for about two hours directing traffic. My shoulders were getting tired. I was having a hard time holding the stop sign at arms length.

After that was done I went back to the HR office and got my coroner ID cards taken care of. I went to Rosauers for a cheeseburger and back to the station to eat there and wait for training. It was a good and productive training. We played with the master stream on Engine Three. We worked the lighting on Rescue and we did some stuff with the extension ladders from the ladder truck.

After training we played cards for a couple hours. Robert from the city PD came down to play with us. We had six-handed games for part of the night, then Scott had to leave. So we played out the night five-handed.

I did awesome. I probably won around ten-twelve bucks on the night. I was just getting all the right cards and making good calls. It is all nickel-dime-quarter stuff so it is hard to bluff people out of the games.