First Responders

Susan's sister works in our city's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management and they sponsored a public Open House this weekend. Who are our First Responders? Police, Fire, EMS, City Employees, trained Volunteers, and many other individuals and groups who spent a Saturday morning putting on a great display of their efforts to protect us from anything and everything, including ourselves. Shown above is a very proud little girl with her father. The event included many activities for children so many of the First Responders had their families out there, in fact we got a chance to visit with our Police Chief and his family.   

When you dial 9-1-1 in Austin the call might be routed here. This photo shows only about a third of the room.

Austin has helicopters, motorcycles, horses, boats, dogs, and bicycle patrols, along with the usual police cruisers.  This pretty much covers our hills, roads, parks, lakes, and city streets. I did learn that we have three separate kinds of K9 dogs - the kind that does rescue and recovery, the kind that searches for drugs and the kind that searches and chases down criminals. Each group is trained separately for their specific skills and they don't mix. 

One activity they sponsored was an opportunity to use "Fatal Vision" goggles. These are used to blur your vision and distort your  perception to give you an idea of how alcohol and drugs can affect your actions. In the videos below I have the goggles on, am driving a "car", and then trying to pass a sobriety test. We laughed and the very vocal spectators were amused but drunk drivers are not funny. Not. At. All.