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Incident Overview <br />On Friday, June 21, 2013 at approximately 7:40PM the City of Roseville and surrounding <br />communities were struck with severe weather, producing straight-line winds and heavy <br />downpours. A contributing factor was that the ground was already saturated due to previous <br />rainfall from storms that had passed through the area in the two weeks leading up to this storm. <br />The storm produced heavy downpours and winds in excessive of 70MPH. The result of this <br />storm was wide-spread damage throughout the ciry leaving approximately 70% of the city <br />without power. <br />Incident Response <br />Fire Department <br />The fire department was one of the first agencies to respond to the storm. Chief O'Neill <br />had been monitoring the weather and requested an All-Call, which would bring firefighters into <br />the station to standby for response. He requested this in a timely fashion hoping to have everyone <br />that was available in the station approximately 15 minutes prior to the expected storm arrival. <br />This would allow them to travel in safer conditions, hoping to avoid possible power line and <br />trees down in the roadways. <br />The call for additional personnel resulted in 29 additional firefighters to the five that were <br />already on staff. Those 34 firefighters were about to experience something that had not been seen <br />in recent history within the City of Roseville. They staffed eight pieces of apparatus that <br />responded to 54 calls within the first four and half hours after the storm struck Most of the calls <br />were for power lines down, trees blocking the roadways or on homes and garages. Firefighters <br />secured the areas with tape, cones and barricades when available. <br />There was a report of a house fire on Friday night; however this was not the case when <br />units arrived. The fire department also assisted Allina Health Paramedics in transferring patients <br />that were at home and vent dependent. This was due to the power being out and the batteries <br />running low in the backup power source for their ventilator. Firefighters also assisted stranded <br />motorists that found themselves stuck in the rapidly rising flood waters. <br />Based on what was seen while responding to calls, Chief O'Neill made contact with <br />interim city manager Pat Trudgeon and advised him of the situation. He also made contact with <br />public works director Duane Schwartz to help coordinate crews and resources needed to clear <br />city streets of debris to open the roadways. <br />When daylight broke on Saturday, there was a second surge in calls for response. This <br />was most likely due to residents discovering what they had not seen due to the darkness of the <br />