Off-duty firefighter Timothy Eiland, 32, was shot in the face in a fatal drive-by shooting while leaving a birthday party Saturday on Chicago’s South Side.
September 13, 2021 – By Katherine Rosenberg-Douglas – Source Chicago Tribune –
Six people were shot — one of them fatally and another critically injured — on the Far South Side Saturday night. An off-duty Chicago firefighter and a 15-year-old girl were among the wounded, officials said.
Authorities said the six people were outside and walking to their vehicles in the 300 block of East Kensington Avenue in West Pullman around 9:40 p.m. Someone in another vehicle “fired multiple rounds, striking the victims,” according to a police media notification.
A 42-year-old woman was shot twice in an arm and once in her armpit, police said, and she was taken to University of Chicago Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead at 10:28 p.m., according to preliminary information from the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
She was identified as Schenia Smith, of the 15300 block of Evers Street in Dolton, according to Natalia Derevyanny, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner’s office. Reached by phone Sunday, a woman who identified herself as Smith’s aunt said Smith is survived by her children and her mother, but she declined additional comment.
Four other people, including the off-duty Chicago firefighter, were taken by paramedics from the Fire Department to area hospitals for treatment of their injuries. A fifth person, a 31-year-old man, later arrived at Little Company of Mary Hospital in a private vehicle, police said.
Police said the injured firefighter, a 32-year-old man, had been shot once in the face and was in critical condition at University of Chicago Medical Center. Larry Langford, a spokesman for the Fire Department, said the firefighter remained in critical condition late Sunday.
Asked for additional details about the man’s career, such as how long he has been with the department, Langford said: “He has been on a few years and is assigned to a South Side firehouse.”
Others injured included:
A 38-year-old man was shot once in the stomach and was in fair condition at University of Chicago Medical Center.
A 15-year-old girl was shot once in the arm and she was listed in fair condition at Comer Children’s Hospital.
A man, 22, was shot once in the arm and once in the leg and he was taken to Roseland Hospital where he was listed in fair condition.
The 31-year-old man who self-transported to Little Company of Mary Hospital suffered a graze wound to his head and he was listed in fair condition.
Crews battling the Caldor and Dixie fires in Northern California are expecting milder weather this week as containment continues to increase.
September 13, 2021 – By Kim Christensen – Source Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES — Firefighters continued to make headway Sunday against two massive Northern California wildfires, officials said, as winds remained light and temperatures hovered only slightly above normal.
“We are making good progress,” said Marco Rodriguez, public information officer with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. “We still have a few things to take care of, but overall, the fire hasn’t grown and we are getting hold of it. Things are looking good.”
Rodriguez said the Caldor fire, to which he is assigned, was 65% contained by Sunday morning, up from 60% on Saturday. The fire has consumed 218,950 acres and destroyed 1,003 structures but grew by only 461 acres overnight.
On Sunday, increasing numbers of residents were being allowed back into evacuation zones to assess damage to their homes, Rodriguez said. More than 10,000 people have been displaced by wildfires in the region, officials said.
About 100 miles to the northwest of the Caldor fire, the Dixie fire north of Sacramento was also 65% contained by Sunday morning, up from 62% a day earlier.
The fire grew by 960 acres since Saturday and has scorched 960,213 acres and destroyed 1,329 structures since it started July 13 near a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. power station in Feather River Canyon. The utility has said it might have been sparked by a tree falling into a power line.
The National Weather Service predicts calm conditions and temperatures slightly above normal for the next few days for both fire zones, with the possibility of a stronger system moving in by the weekend.
Light winds from the north and east are expected to lower humidity levels, but otherwise “they don’t look like much of a concern,” said Cory Mueller, a meteorologist with the weather service in Sacramento. No rain or lightning, which had sparked at least eight new starts in the area of the Caldor fire, are in the forecast.
“It’ll be a pretty quiet week, fire weather-wise, which will be pretty welcome,” Mueller said.
Firefighter Jeffery Hager, 46, served with the Charlotte and Huntersville fire departments
September 12, 2021 – By: Joe Marusak – The Charlotte Observer
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A longtime firefighter has died of COVID-19, the Charlotte Fire Department said Saturday.
“It is with the heaviest of hearts that we announce the tragic passing of Charlotte Firefighter Jeffery Hager, a 24-year veteran with the department,” fire officials said in a statement.
Charlotte Firefighter Jeffery Hager, a 24-year veteran with the department, died of COVID-19.
The 46-year-old Hager died Friday afternoon “after valiantly fighting COVID-19 for several weeks,” according to the statement.
COVID also hospitalized his wife, Amee, friends posted on a Go Fund Me fundraiser for their four children. Her condition was unknown on Saturday.
Hager joined the fire department on March 12, 1997, “and served the community until his death,” according to the statement. “We ask that you please keep family, friends and fire department members in your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time.”
Jeff and Amee Hager tested positive for COVID on Aug. 23, fellow firefighter Anjie Davis Blackmon posted on the Go Fund Me fundraiser she established to help the family.
Jeff Hager also served on the Huntersville Fire Department since 2013, according to Blackmon.
The couple was admitted to a hospital on Aug. 28. On Sept. 3, their conditions worsened, she said.
Family members are caring for the Hagers’ children — ages 14, 13, 7 and 6, she said.
“Amee is a fantastic stay-at-home mom, often assuming the role of both mother and father with Jeff’s work schedule,” Blackmon said.
“As a fellow firefighter, I know that if I were in need of help, Jeff would be there to help,” she said. “Right now Jeff, Amee and their children desperately need our help.”
The Huntersville Fire Department joined the effort, tweeting photos of the family and the link to the fundraiser.
“Needing some prayers for one of our members & his family,” the firefighters tweeted. “A dedicated, beloved member & a VERY active public servant & his family. Not often we ask for help…we often avoid it. We’re the helpers. But we need your help today.”
Blackmon hoped to raise $10,000 for groceries, clothing and any other immediate need expenses for their children. She also hopes to devote part of the money to “maintaining their home for the day that they can all be rejoined as a family.”
By Saturday, 358 people had contributed a total of $38,000.
Two men are in police custody after an SUV rammed into a Brownsville restaurant on Saturday, sending a cashier to the hospital with injuries.
September 12, 2021 – By Ryan Henry and Laura B. Martinez – Source Source The Monitor, McAllen, Texas
Sep. 12—Two men are in police custody after an SUV rammed into a restaurant Saturday, sending a cashier to the hospital with injuries, according to Brownsville police.
Those who experienced the ordeal from inside the Toddle Inn’s dining area consider themselves fortunate no one was killed.
“Hell yeah, we’re lucky,” restaurant manager Melina Robles told The Brownsville Herald. “We could have been standing there waiting on a table with customers sitting down or someone walking in or walking out.”
In fact, some customers had just left and another eight were eating breakfast. Then, just a few minutes before 8 a.m., a silver Chevrolet Tahoe thundered through the front door.
Robles, who was standing at the kitchen pass-through window with her back to the dining area, heard the roar of the crash.
“It was a super loud sound, like when a transformer goes out — but like a 100 times stronger than that,” she said. “I thought it was a transformer because the lights flickered, but as soon as I turned around, I saw the vehicle in the entrance.”
The cashier was screaming “at the top of her lungs” in pain, Robles said.
Through the screaming and the dust and debris in the air, there was still another danger for the customers — the smell of natural gas.
“I smelled the gas, but it was a different smell. It was a weird smell,” Robles said. “I started screaming to everyone to get out.”
Restaurant owner Mark Perez said the SUV crashed through the building’s gas meter, causing a gas leak, when the truck rammed through the entrance. He said the two men inside the truck fled on foot, as the engine idled.
“My concern was it (the truck) was going to blow,” Robles said.
But when the vehicle hit the dining room, all the tables and chairs were scattered, blocking a table of four diners into the corner. An older customer named Juan — known respectfully by the restaurant staff as Don Juan — had already helped carry the cashier outside and then returned to help the manager get those four diners to safety, each moving tables and chairs.
With gas leaking into the restaurant, the engine could not be immediately turned off.
“They hit the gas pipe, they took out the whole meter,” Perez said. “The vehicle was still on, and they couldn’t turn the vehicle off.”
Firefighters later had to open the hood of the truck “and disconnect a bunch of relays because the vehicle, where the key ignition was, was broken,” Perez said.
“How it didn’t blow was a miracle,” he said.
Brownsville police are investigating the accident, department spokesman Investigator Martin Sandoval said. The driver and passenger — both men — fled on foot from the accident but were arrested soon after by police officers, Sandoval said.
“I’d say in about 20 minutes our patrol division located these two individuals and took them into custody,” Sandoval said. “Luckily, people saw them and gave a good description of the two individuals, and we managed to locate them later.”
According to the spokesman, police suspect the driver lost control of the vehicle but that alcohol was not a contributing factor.
Brownsville Fire Chief Jarrett Sheldon said his firefighters had to take control of the gas leak.
The injured cashier was taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries, and has since been released, according to restaurant owners and staff.
One of the four diners blocked by tables and chairs into the corner of the restaurant was Sharon Putegnat, a Brownsville resident who uses a cane to assist her as she walks. She was eating breakfast with her sister and brother-in-law, Pam and Gale Armstrong, and her good friend Karen Ray when they heard what she said was an “unbelievable sound.”
“My sister screams ‘a bomb,’” Putegnant said. “Really, I have never heard what a bomb sounds like basically, but it was deafening. This vehicle came in, we didn’t even know it was a vehicle at the time, because we had to turn away because the debris started flying. I mean tables, chairs, wall. I mean, it was just coming down.”
Putegnat said everyone was fortunate that the restaurant was not more crowded — and that those who were eating were not sitting closer to the front door.
“If we would have been sitting at the place where it came in, we would have been killed,” she said.
The manager and Juan helped Putegnant and others get outside through the kitchen.
“I remember Melly (the manager) saying, ‘Get in your cars and get out of here as fast as you can because the car is on a gas line’,” Putegnat said.
The Toddle Inn, located at 1740 Central Blvd., first opened its doors in 1961. The Perez family has owned the Brownsville landmark since 1971, and Mark Perez took ownership of it in January 2005.
Perez was at home when he got the call about the accident. He immediately got dressed and arrived to meet with staff and survey the damage.
“Our regular customers,” Perez said, referring to Putegnant and her party, “they left the money (for breakfast) on the table. They still paid.”
(c)2021 The Monitor (McAllen, Texas)
Visit The Monitor (McAllen, Texas) at www.themonitor.com
A first responder has died in California while battling the second-largest wildfire in state history, fire officials said Saturday.
The fatality was reported Saturday evening in Cal Fire’s incident update about the devastating Dixie Fire burning above the Cresta Dam near Feather River Canyon in Butte, Plumas, Lassen and Tehama Counties.
While Cal Fire did not release additional details about the death in the update, a representative for the agency told FOX40 Sacramento that the individual was suffering from a previous illness. No details about the illness were given.
While the victim was not immediately identified, the representative said the first responder was an assistant fire engine operator with the Lassen National Forest and had died on Saturday.
Three other first responders have been injured battling the blaze that first broke out on July 13. No civilian deaths or injuries have been reported, according to Cal Fire.
The Dixie Fire is the second-largest wildfire in state history, having consumed at least 889,001 acres. It is 56% contained, fire officials said.
The fire has destroyed at least 1,282 homes, businesses, and other structures.
The Dixie Fire was about 65 miles north of the Caldor Fire, which threatened Lake Tahoe, and was one of the dozens of California blazes that more than 15,000 firefighters were battling.
Since March, 2020, 680 U.S. Forest Service employees in the agency’s California Region have tested positive for COVID-19 according to Anthony Scardina on September 7, 2021, the Deputy Regional Forester for State and Private Forestry. Of those, 561 were wildland firefighters, he said. *Stanton Florea, Fire Communications Specialist for the Forest Service at the National Interagency Fire Center said on Sept. 8 that approximately 918 wildland fire employees within the entire agency have tested positive for the virus.
Mr. Florea said they do not formally track the number of their employees that have been hospitalized with COVID.
In the last week word leaked that one of those firefighters who tested positive died due to the coronavirus, and a reporter discovered that another died of an unspecified illness. Subsequently, the Lassen National Forest released a statement late at night September 5 confirming the two fatalities and the names of the deceased, but nothing about the cause of death, dates, or the location.
Marcus Pacheco was an assistant engine operator who had 13 years of fire experience with CAL FIRE and 30 with the FS. He died of an unspecified illness while working on the Dixie Fire.
Allen Johnson was a semi-retired 40-year FS veteran and was serving as a Liaison Officer on an Incident Management Team on the French Fire when he contracted COVID.
During an interview September 7 with Wildfire Today we asked Mr. Scardina how many FS firefighters had died in the line of duty after contracting COVID.
“I’m not going to report fatalities of our employees when it comes to personal illnesses and other privacy matters in terms of deaths at this point in time,” he said. “We’re taking a look at those situations, what the review process will be to make sure we understand the facts. And it’s just simply too early out of respect for the family of being appropriate for us to comment at this point in time on those situations.
The deaths were first officially announced to the public in a manner more formal than Facebook Sept. 7, 2021 by Mr. Scardina at a news conference. It was tweeted by both the FS and the California Office of Emergency Services. The CAL OES recording below had much better audio than the FS version.
On September 8 Mr. Florea said there have been two deaths of FS fire personnel that are suspected to be related to COVID. Requests for more details, such as names, dates, name of fire, or location did not receive a response, so it is not certain if these two are the fatalities disclosed by Mr. Scardina on September 7, who also provided no details.
Historically the FS has disclosed fatalities within 24 to 48 hours. The agency usually waits until the families are notified before releasing the names of the deceased, which may take a little longer. Most of the time the general circumstances will also be released, such as hit by a falling tree, vehicle accident, or entrapped by a fire. But for firefighters who contracted COVID on the job, the FS has been extremely reluctant to disclose any information about these line of duty hospitalizations and deaths. The agency’s public information officers whose job is to inform America about FS activities, fires, and circumstances that affect the health and safety of their employees and the public, have been keeping it secret, slow-walking and dissembling when finally responding to requests from journalists about line of duty illnesses and deaths of fire personnel.
One firefighter told Wildfire Today about something he noticed about supervisory personnel at fires. “I’m noticing that all Incident Management Team members are wearing wristbands and being screened everyday,” he said. “This is not happening for firefighters. They are wearing colored wristbands to show they cleared the screening, but nothing for firefighters.”
The firefighter said in order to help protect his family when he got home, he asked to get tested while being demobilized from the fire, but the request was denied.
We are hearing rumblings that some fires are being hit very hard by COVID, with large numbers of personnel testing positive or being quarantined but this is difficult to confirm without the agencies’ cooperation.
Opinion
Fighting wildfires has always had a long list of recognized risks. An analysis by the National Interagency Fire Center determined that from 1990 through 2014 there were 440 fatalities in the line of duty among wildland firefighters. The top four categories which accounted for 88 percent of the deaths were, in decreasing order, medical issues (usually heart related), aircraft accidents, vehicle accidents, and being entrapped by the fire.
The COVID pandemic adds a new category and level of risk from which these firefighters now have to defend themselves. They already wear Kevlar chaps to prevent a chain saw from cutting into their leg, a helmet, leather gloves, hearing protection, safety glasses, fire resistant shirts and pants, and a five-pound foldable shelter to climb under when entrapped by a fire.
Many of these highly-trained firefighters comprise more than 100 hotshot crews. They are tactical athletes who carry more than 30 pounds of gear up and down steep, rugged terrain for up to 16 hours every day while battling a fire, sometimes miles from the nearest vehicle. They immerse themselves in wildland fire science and fire behavior to anticipate what the fire will do in order to avoid unnecessary exposure to risks.
But now their employer, the US Forest Service, is reluctant to fully disclose to them a key fact related to their safety — how many of their fellow firefighters have been hospitalized or killed in the line of duty by COVID.
Ventana Hotshots holding a line on the Monument Fire in Northern California, August, 2021. USFS photo.
The FS has not been disclosing COVID line of duty deaths the same way they announced that two firefighters were killed in an airplane crash or one died after being hit by a falling tree, all within the last two months.
COVID among firefighters is not really a “personal illness”, as described Mr. Scardina, when it is caused by a requirement from their employer, for example, to travel across the country and work with 4,809 others at the Dixie Fire in California. For decades the Forest Service and the other four federal land management agencies have, as far as we know, reported all line of duty deaths, including illnesses such as cardiac issues, which might be described as a “personal illness”.
It is puzzling that the leadership in the federal wildland fire organizations are so scared or reluctant to talk about the effects of COVID on their work force. I don’t see any upside in a doomed-to-fail effort to keep it secret. Maybe it is a holdover thought process from the previous administration whose leader said at least 38 times in 2020 between February and October that COVID-19 is either going to disappear or is currently disappearing.
By refusing to be transparent about pandemic related illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths on the job, the perception could be that the government has something to hide or they want to restrict the disclosure of news that could reflect negatively on the administration. It would be impossible to argue that withholding this information is in the best interests of the employees. And it degrades the trust that an employee would hope to have in their leadership.
Far more important than protecting the political future of the President, is being honest with their firefighters about the degree of risk they are taking while serving their country battling wildfires.
Something has to change
Federal wildland firefighters work for the Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, and the National Park Service. The first responsibility of these agencies is the safety of their personnel, including the 15,000 firefighters. If they are so cavalier about this responsibility to not even care how many have been hospitalized in the line of duty, and keep secret as much as possible the extent of how many have gotten seriously ill or died from COVID while working for them, then something has to change.
The primary job of these five agencies is not fighting fire — it is very far from it. They inspect meat packing plants, issue what used to be called Food Stamps, clean rest rooms, manage visitors, and grow trees. Those at the top of the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior where they presently reside, in most cases have no background in emergency services. It is not in their DNA to worry night and day about those under their command being injured or killed in the line of duty. Career fire personnel understand this.
The firefighters in these five agencies need to be exfiltrated from the DOI and DOA and given refuge in a new agency within the Department of Homeland Security where top management pays attention to the risks emergency management personnel face. If I was a betting man, I would wager that they care how many of their employees have been killed or hospitalized by COVID, at least publicly to the extent allowed by the White House.
This new agency of 15,000 wildland firefighters could be named National Fire Service. It could even welcome the structural firefighters that work for the Department of Defense.
On Wednesday 40 firefighters from Quebec, Canada arrived in the United States to assist in suppressing wildfires.
In Boise they received an orientation briefing and fire shelter deployment training at the National Interagency Fire Center. The crews have since traveled to the Schneider Springs Fire on the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest in Washington.
The National Wildfire Preparedness Level has been at 5, the highest level, for nearly two months. Currently, 99 large wildfires are burning across the western U.S., with 57 of them having a strategy of full suppression.
Chief Micky Fyock’s 1950s-era Mack Ladder Truck 16 was the only apparatus small enough to get inside the Pentagon
September 11, 2021 – By Mary Grace Keller – For The Frederick News-Post, Md.
FREDERICK COUNTY, Md. — Micky Fyock had just finished his supervisor shift at the Frederick County 911 center when he got a phone call the night of Sept. 11, 2001.
The Woodsboro Volunteer Fire Company chief answered the call. A dispatcher told him the Pentagon needed Woodsboro’s 1950s era Mack Ladder Truck 16 to help contain the fire that started after American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the building.
The Woodsboro Volunteer Fire Company chief answered the call. A dispatcher told him the Pentagon needed Woodsboro’s 1950s era Mack Ladder Truck 16 to help contain the fire that started after American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the building. (Woodsboro Volunteer Fire Company)
“I thought somebody was messing with me,” Fyock said.
But the need was real, and it was urgent.
Like Woodsboro fire station’s engine bay doors, the Pentagon’s entrance stood 10 feet tall, and they needed apparatus small enough to get inside. Someone in D.C., Fyock doesn’t know who, remembered that Woodsboro had an older, smaller truck that just might fit.
Fyock directed the local 911 center to dispatch the call like they would for any other fire. The first four qualified firefighters to arrive went with Fyock, and they headed for the Pentagon.
The truck only held two people and wouldn’t go faster than 55 mph, according to Fyock. The other three firefighters followed in a duty vehicle.
Fyock doesn’t remember much about the journey, but he does recall how eerily empty the roads were. He only saw one other vehicle.
When the Woodsboro crew arrived, they had to hand over their cell phones before entering the Pentagon. Their target was the inner courtyard, nestled within the rings of the building.
“We went inside and they told us that because of the jet fuel in the building basically they had decided to not fight fire that night but just to hold it where it is,” Fyock recalled.
Authors Patrick Creed and Rick Newman detail the effort in their book, “Firefight: Inside the Battle to Save the Pentagon on 9/11.”
Working alongside other fire crews, Truck 16 aimed its 65-foot ladder and hose at the roof, the authors wrote. The truck lacked remote control to operate the hose, so firefighters rigged a pulley system with ropes to move the hose around. Once it was stable, firefighters in pairs took turns directing the water.
Fyock, chief then and still chief now, supervised the group. They were on scene for about 13 hours, he told the News-Post. A three-star general loaned Fyock his cell phone so he could check in with command.
When Fyock found time for breaks, he took in the scenes around him. Exhausted firefighters slept on body bags, and inside the Pentagon, knee deep in water, Fyock came upon a hole where the cockpit came crashing through.
Body parts were scattered around it. He later realized they must have belonged to the terrorists who hijacked the plane.
Eventually, fresh fire crews started to arrive at the Pentagon, along with food trucks. In the midst of the new flurry of activity, Fyock noticed a man in a suit, just standing there staring at the wreckage.
Fyock asked if the man needed anything.
“I was at the dentist,” the man told him. “But my fellow workers weren’t.”
Fyock put his arm around the stranger, and they sat on a bench.
“I just held him for a while,” Fyock said.
The man left eventually, but Fyock never got his name.
Twenty years later, Fyock feels like it was yesterday.
“The visions I saw will never leave me,” Fyock said. “In my lifetime, I’ve seen a lot of tragedy.”
But he’s also seen a lot of good.
“I remember the morning of the 12th we had our ladder up, and it was flowing water, and we put an American flag on the end of the ladder,” Fyock said.
As the sun beamed down on the water and the flag waved, a rainbow appeared.
“I said, we’re gonna be all right,” Fyock said.
Relieved of duty, Fyock and his crew returned to Woodsboro.
After two decades, Fyock is the only member of the 9/11 crew who is still active with the Woodsboro Volunteer Fire Company.
Truck 16 eventually became too old to meet modern needs and was sold to collector and longtime firefighter Kyd Dieterich, who was once fire chief in Hagerstown. Though he retired from career firefighting, he still volunteers on the Board of Directors at the Funkstown station in Washington County.
When Dieterich worked in fire truck sales, he knew Woodsboro planned to sell Truck 16 not long after 9/11. After Woodsboro didn’t get any enticing offers, Dieterich made a bid. The company accepted it, and Dieterich moved the truck to storage in Hagerstown.
He’s kept it in good condition and rolls it out every now and then for special occasions such as parades.
“It’s part of our nation’s history. It’s something that I think our citizens should be proud of,” Dieterich said in an interview.
He believes Truck 16 should stay in the area and, ideally, be on display.
Clarence “Chip” Jewell, president of the Frederick County Fire & Rescue Museum in Emmitsburg, thinks he can help.
Jewell, a retired director of volunteer services at Frederick County and currently assistant chief and president at Libertytown, would love to see the truck displayed at the museum. It’s just an idea in its infancy at this point, but it’s a hope he has for the future. The museum would need to be expanded to fit the truck.
“It really is an iconic piece of fire apparatus,” Jewell said, adding it has become known as “the little truck that could.”
When the 9/11 anniversary comes around, Fyock tends to stay at home. At 69 years old, he has 56 years of volunteer fire service under his belt. There have been times in those years he questioned whether he’s had enough.
Then he gets another call.
“You get reborn again, because you know you did good, you’ve helped people,” Fyock said. “You know you have a purpose.”
(c)2021 The Frederick News-Post (Frederick, Md.)McClatchy-Tribune News Service
The newly released footage shows the work of first responders during last week’s severe storm from the remnants of Hurricane Ida
September 09, 2021 – NJ Advanced Media
Those were just part of several rescues made in Princeton Wednesday night and early Thursday.
“We are sharing this as a reminder to not drive around barricades,” Princeton police said. “They are there for your safety and we do not have the resources to have our officers physically at each road closure to enforce the ‘road closed’ sign.”
In all, Princeton police responded to 393 calls between 10 p.m. Wednesday and 8 a.m. Thursday. The calls were for stranded or trapped motorists, abandoned vehicles with possible trapped occupants, flooded roads and residents trapped in flooded homes on top of regular service calls, officials said.
