Ivan changed lives, response mechanisms
BUTLER TWP — Ten years later, Chris Calhoun recalls his “night with Ivan” in 2004 with vivid detail.
Perhaps it was because he spent the night in rescue boats all over the county, helping save 22 people and seven pets from swift, rising floodwaters.
It also could be because he heavily documented where he went that night and the following day with photographs and extensive notes once the floodwaters subsided. He still shares lessons learned and shows photographs from Hurricane Ivan.
“It was the most intense night of my life,” said Calhoun, a Butler County Community College professor and the coordinator for the school’s Parks and Recreation Management program who is also a water rescue expert.
“Water rescue: It’s high risk, low frequency. And a lot of the people, not only in this area, but throughout Western Pennsylvania, the response personnel had never dealt with that kind of water, in those challenging conditions. We’re very fortunate that no lives were lost that evening.”
There is one rescue that was more intense than any other. Calhoun bounced from Evans City to Harmony and Zelienople that night, but saving three Emlenton firefighters after their boat turned over during their own rescue mission was the instance that really stayed with him.
Emlenton Fire Chief Dave Whitehill ended up grabbing a telephone wire that caused his boat to flip over, and he managed to pull himself to a telephone pole. He stayed for nearly two hours until he was rescued.
“That’s something you’ll never forget,” Whitehill said. “The stuff going through my mind that night was endless. I didn’t think I was going to see my youngest daughter get married. How was my wife going to tell her best friend, whose boy was on the boat with me, that me and her son was gone? All of these things go through your mind.”
His two fellow firefighters held onto the flipped boat a few hundred feet away, but Whitehill thought one of them didn’t make it.
Calhoun said, “The people that were affected, it changed their lives. But as long as they can walk away with their lives, that’s the best thing. You can always replace physical things, but when you lose lives, you can’t replace that.”
He said the flooding from Ivan acted as a springboard for establishing several safety programs in the state, as well as fine tuning existing ones.
For instance, the Region 13 Task Force, which groups 13 counties in southwestern Pennsylvania to respond in mass emergency situations, was improved upon, Calhoun said.
Also, Pennsylvania VRSR, the Voluntary Rescue Service Recognition, checks emergency groups to make sure they have the appropriate training in machinery and swift-water/flood management.
“There are inspectors that will come in and validate that they got the training, the equipment, and the personnel, that your people have the certification that you are compliant with all the standards,” Calhoun said. “As of July, we have 25 VRSR teams in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”
If anything like Ivan were to happen again, the emergency response would be dramatically different. He said there is more equipment available now. For example, the PA-HART program, which is a helicopter aquatic rescue team, now is available.
He remembers telling the other people in his boat the night of Ivan that no one would be there to save them if their rescue boat ran into trouble. That’s no longer the case.
“The Pennsylvania Helicopter Aquatic Rescue Team, that is also kind of the pinnacle for if our rescuers get in trouble, or if we’ve got somebody out there that the teams can’t get. There’s one final resource that’s out there, and that’s our helicopter asset,” Calhoun said.
And more people are better trained for extreme situations.
He said, “Our training programs from when I started at the Fish and Boat Commission to where we’re at now are light years, in terms of things that we’re doing and how we focus on the importance of training, what our instructors do.
“Ivan was good for Pennsylvania, whereas good things can happen from a bad situation.”
