• Emergency Managers and Personnel
• Situation Reports
• National Incident Management System
• Grants & Assistance Programs
• Training
• Contacts
• Planning
• Best Practices

National Situation Update: Friday, June 2, 2006

Homeland Security Threat Level: YELLOW (ELEVATED).

Wet East and Northwest

Northeast:  As one wave of low pressure moves east of southern New England this morning, a second low-pressure area will develop along the south-and-eastbound cold front in the Mid-Atlantic. Thunderstorms with localized one-to-three-inch downpours will advance out of the eastern Ohio Valley and into the Mid-Atlantic States and southeast New York. Severe thunderstorms, including the risk for a few tornadoes, will focus on parts of eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware and Virginia. Tonight and tomorrow, as the second low-pressure area moves off the Jersey coast, heavy rain will move from the Hudson Valley to central and southern New England and finally out to sea. Some areas could pick up 3 to 4 inches of rain. Tomorrow, the cold front will move off the Mid-Atlantic Coast with a few more thunderstorms, a few of which could turn severe over Tidewater Virginia.

South:  The southernmost Texas Gulf Coast could see heavy rain in thunderstorms this morning before southeast Texas finally gets a chance to dry out. Meanwhile, a cold front will gradually push toward the northern Gulf Coast and Southeast Coast today and tomorrow. Strong thunderstorms with locally heavy rainfall will be scattered ahead of the front. Sea breeze boundaries will enhance thunderstorms over the eastern Carolinas, coastal Georgia and Florida.

Midwest:  The Plains will heat up today and this weekend with 90s increasingly prevalent which means temperatures 5 to 25 degrees above average. Some record highs are possible. As the thunderstorms exit the Ohio Valley, weak upper-level disturbances roaming from the northern Rockies to the northern Mississippi Valley could generate a few strong-to-severe thunderstorms over the Plains and Upper Midwest both today and tomorrow.

West:  The storm system off the Northwest coast will produce more rain from northernmost California to western Washington and scattered strong thunderstorms from eastern Oregon to western Montana. This unsettled pattern will linger into tomorrow with showers and thunderstorms scattered over the Northwest from Oregon to Montana. A new Pacific system will approach Oregon with a fresh round of rain by tomorrow evening.   (NWS, Media Sources)

Air Tanker Safety Questions Still Linger

Heavy air tankers are expected to be flying and fighting fires this summer, subject to more detailed and frequent safety inspections in the wake of deadly crashes.
The federal government expects to have at least 16 air tankers ready for this wildfire season, roughly half the tankers used in 2004, when they were grounded temporarily due to questions about their airworthiness.

The P-2V and P-3 tankers in the fleet are expected to have cockpit voice recorders in place this year, said Larry Brosnan, the Forest Service's assistant director for fire and aviation. The P-2Vs, which are older, also will be inspected for weak spots in the plane surface.

P-2Vs and P-3s are decades-old, converted military craft, and the NTSB noted in a 2004 report that companies operating the tankers often didn't have ready access to useful information such as the number of hours individual tankers had flown. Government and industry officials are just beginning to understand how the firefighting environment - the turbulence, the force, the retardant loads - affects the tankers. But they say they're confident in the maintenance and inspection programs and in the safety of the tankers being cleared for flight.

A consulting firm that crafted the new maintenance program for P-2Vs found 47 spots on the wings and tail that require more detailed inspections to find problems early, said James Burd, co-owner of the consulting firm, Avenger Aircraft and Services.  The new inspections so far have found some wing cracks that could have caused problems if untended, but no widespread problems, Burd said.

Monitoring equipment will be placed on tankers this year to evaluate the certain stresses of firefighting. The inspection program will be adjusted to reflect the results, Burd said.
Inspection of the P-3s, a successor to the P-2Vs, is based on a Navy program that takes into account factors such as metal fatigue, said John Nelson, an aviation management specialist with the Forest Service. P-3s were cleared for a return to service in mid-2004, when the government said the tankers' airworthiness had been determined.  While cockpit voice recorders are to be added this year, flight-data recorders that experts like Hall have recommended are not.   (Media Sources)

Tropical Activity

No new activity (FEMA HQ)

Earthquake Activity

No new activity (FEMA HQ)

Preliminary Damage Assessments

No new activity (FEMA HQ)

Wildfire Update

Current Situation:  (Data reported as of 8:30 am EDT.)  Initial attack activity was light nationally with 146 new fires reported. Four new large fires were reported in the Southern Area. Seven large fires were contained, three in the Southwest Area, three in the Southern Area and one in the Southern California Area. Very high to extreme fire indices were reported in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico and Utah.

National Preparedness Level Is 2 (On a scale of 1 to 5).

Wildfire Forecast:  A warming trend continues over the West as strong high pressure builds over the area. Moisture is beginning to filter into western New Mexico and eastern Arizona for an increasing threat of dry thunderstorms in those areas. Moisture is also increasing in Florida for higher humidity and scattered thundershowers. In Alaska, cooler temperatures are on tap along with scattered showers.    (National Interagency Fire Center, NWS, Storm Prediction Center)

Disaster Declaration Activity

No new activity (FEMA HQ)