Which do you save ?

[bajdas]

I will be interested in opinions, because it has started alot of conversations with friends. This is a hypothetical situation:

In a small rural township you have an emergency situation. You have limited equipment and resources.

All people and animals have beem moved to a safe place and thus no life risk.

At risk is six houses and a temporary grain storage facility on the outskirts of the township.

The storage facility has approximately $1 million worth of grain recently harvested under tarpaulins. The houses if lost will affect the owners.

You have the resources to:
1/ Ensure you save the houses, but loose the grain storage.
2/ Ensure you save the grain storage, but loose the houses.
3/ Split your resources & take a chance on loosing both or minimising the impact to houses & grain storage.

Which do you choose and why ?

I do not think there is a right or wrong answer.....

[crossy]

go with the houses saves people alot of hard times plus the grain would be covered by insurance.

[Bagyassfirey]

split and defend both a pile of grain is relatively simple to defend as long as you got the tarp off it in time (1 million dollars worth isnt a big pile). If ya didn would revert back to the houses!

[Alex]

Option 4/ save the pub.

Always save the pub...

[bajdas]

Option 4/ save the pub.

Always save the pub...

Best answer so far by far         

[gilfire99]

OK, speaking as an ex SA firefighter now living and working in Central West NSW I offer the following which may or may not be applicable to SA.

Firstly, most grain storage facilities over here are surrounded by a reasonable amount of mineral earth plus it takes a fair amount of radiant heat to severely damage grain. So not a huge amount of effort needs to be applied to the grain.

Next take a look at the house occupants, are there any that are old or infirm (consider evacuation) where are the young fit people( they should be on your trucks!!!), they should be able to help protect their homes so you can concentrate on the others.

 Finally, as Alex said, protect the pub!!! I know it was meant as a joke but take some time to think about this. Just imagine the affect on a small community if they lose their pub whether it be through fire, bad management or whatever, the community loses much more than a watering hole. There goes their social networking place, meeting place for local groups, sometimes local shop as well as employment for some. There are two small villages in my group where the pub is the only retail business, in one of them the publican is the brigade Captain, the other the publican is a Senior Deputy (equivalent Lt.1) so the best way to turn out the brigade is to ring the pub!!!

Once again, no real right or wrong with this scenario, just the way I think and thanks bajdas for the opportunity to express it.

[bittenyakka]

So some quick maths $1 mil of grain and lets jsut say FED1 wheat will be about 4500mt so pretty tiny compared to some piles.  It wouldn;t take much do defend that.

As others have said the grain storage ofen has mineral earth around it.

I would save the houses simply because the houses are the community, people live there if they can't live there the town will suffer and perhaps cease to exist. 1 very empy grain bunker is pretty small compared to loosing a township.

And if you are a certain SA senator you will may the multinationals pay 

[bajdas]

The issue actually occurred during the Victorian floods.

The group wanted extra sandbags to protect the grain storage and potentially limiting the availability of bags to houses in the township. I am unsure of the result.

The debate is that if the grain got wet & thus downgraded from Soft/Prime hard to Feed = $100 tonne lost. With resultant loss of money for trucking, machinery, township sales, etc.

I recorded last weeks Landline program which had an article on a dairy farmer (amongst other farmers) who were impacted by the floods. See http://www.abc.net.au/landline/

He was fine until the authorities (unknown who) breeched the levy bank to release river flood flows. Now his dairy & paddocks are under water for a few weeks. His cows are being milked by a fellow farmer & feed is being trucked in. His workers are unemployed until water goes and unknown about insurance.

I am fascinated about the extra impact a decision can have during an emergency event. Especially when multiple authorities are trying to dictate what happens.

[chook]

In a similar vain - many years ago it was decided to blow the railway line between Bourke & Nyngan to release held back water. End result was flooding effect reduced, however line never rebuilt & businesses closed around Bourke due to the lack of a rail link. In the big scheme of things commercial interests (even farms)don't out way the protection of hospitals etc or private dewellings (so the theory goes). The thought process is "they are insured' regardless whether they are or not. Our farmers up north (Townsville) had to dump milk due to lack of electricity & transport - they want compensation however they were advised to source portable generators to keep milk refridgerated but chose not to.
So to answer the problem posed - protect the houses sorry grain storage! (I would however make sure the pub was protected)

[rescue5271]

Always save the pub.....

[fire8029]

you would split and try and save both, image the media if you just stood there and let the grain burn while saving the houses.