Omaha Police Mounted Patrol

This week I got to spend some time with an officer from the Omaha Police Mounted Patrol. In an age of high speed police chases and cutting edge technology crime-fightning, it was a real experience to speak with a police officer sitting atop a large Morgan horse.

The Omaha Police Mounted Patrol Unit began in 1989 as a part-time Unit on a trial basis when two community leaders, then Omaha Mayor P.J. Morgan and area businessman Donovan Ketzler, decided to implement a horse patrol. The Unit started with two Officers, two donated horses, a donated trailer, and all the accompanying donated tack. The original Mounted Patrol Officers assisted with big events such as Septemberfest and River City Roundup along with patrolling the downtown area, responding to disturbances, and playing a crucial role in crowd control situations. The new horse patrol exceeded expectations and was such a success in all areas of law enforcement, special events, and public relations that the Mounted Patrol was made a full-time Unit in 1990.

Mounted Patrol Officers perform all aspects of police work from horseback including traffic and crowd control; they conduct traffic stops, write citations, and make arrests. Horse Patrol Officers are often utilized during searches for missing persons, evidence, and suspects in open fields, wooded areas, and rough terrain.

The Unit has a state-of-the-art equine facility downtown and the patrol operates nearly year 'round, riding the city in even the coldest of temperatures. The powerful well-trained horses are really amazing and it was a pleasure to watch these fantastic animals.

There is a cool video of the horses in training at http://www.ketv.com/news/18882179/detail.html#

Omaha trip over

Well, another week has passed and with it some of the best events of the year. After having just finished a tour through some Omaha Public Schools, I am feeling really good about the new year's new school programming. Every grade was an absolute blast and we met so many great teachers (and a few great principals) on this trip and cannot wait to return to Omaha.

It was good to see David and Shari again at the Conestoga Magnet School and the turn-out for the evening event with the parents was really awesome!

Now, as the week ended with Hamilton, it ended on a VERY positive note...what a great school! The teachers were really fun to be around and Shawn (the principal) is definitely Chasing4Life material. How cool is a school where you can take riding lessons from the Omaha mounted Police? Congrats on a successful walk-a-thon you guys and I am looking forward to coming back!

Your kitchen and disasters

I found this cool article on About.com...

Natural disasters are a reality that the entire world deals with including hurricanes, floods, blizzards, and even simple short-term power outages. It is important to be prepared in the kitchen. Those who are used to severe weather storms most likely already have an emergency food plan in place. Find out what you can do to prepare your kitchen for natural disasters or any state of emergency with tips and recipes.

For the rest of the article, visit http://homecooking.about.com/od/disaster/a/disasterpantry.htm

By Peggy Trowbridge Filippone

There is a GREAT list of cooking tips, foods to stock for disasters and a lot more! Best article I have seen in a long time! Seriously people, read this article and check out the links!

A season of change

It has been a week since the last leg of the tour ended and we are still not fully recovered. Trucks to fix, paperwork to do, filming to prepare for and we leave again on Monday for a tour in Omaha of public schools! Not really time off!

There are a lot of changes coming up ahead with Chasing4Life, the educational foundation, drivers, instructors, tours and the website. You will begin to notice (and might have already) that the website pages are being re-written. Banners will change, sponsors are being changed, moved and added, and the overall feel of things is changing. You will be noticing new pages, a new focus, more educational materials and hopefully more blogging!

The film, Chasing With Heart, could be very well on its way to completion with the arrival of Verita Pictures from Canada in 7 days to finish shooting. This is exciting and will put us into the next phase of Chasing4Life's changes.

We are excited that our old crew has almost completely returned and the disaster recovery focus has definitely returned to Chasing4Life bringing with it memories of the ice storms, tornadoes, hurricanes and blizzards of a few years ago.

Christina is working hard on the recovery team and recruitment along with tour packaging and grants while Nikki has begun to work on personnel and protocols for the restored team. Chad is presently working on a new truck and will be working on victim relations procedures while we hope Dan can complete a communications plan for the coming year. It is our goal to send Cory to school this year; a move we feel would give us one of the finest forecasters any team could have, and Jim is looking ahead to disaster recovery coordination and will be meeting with Nikki over the weekend. Cathy is hard at work on tours and scheduling events while Alannah is preparing for more involvement as a presenter on the next few tours while keeping up on her studies.

Chasing4Life's metamorphysis will be massive over the next few months as we focus more on severe weather monitoring and training, research and education, disaster recovery and community restoration. You will see fewer references to stormchasing as the months progress as Chasing4Life begins to make changes that will separate the organization from the perceptions that follow stormchasers around the country.

Looking forward to seeing all the changes? We are!

Want to be involved?

Now is the time to email us and request a disaster response team application. Now is the time to grab an available date for your organization before the tours are full, and now would be a great time to step up as a sponsor.

It's almost the end of the year, and sponsorships all expire at the end of the year so if you are a company, entity or organization looking to attach themselves to a national team with national exposure and a cause worth backing, email us right away.

Well, enough for now, but watch for more and more updates...

Oh yeah...don't forget!

The 72 Hour experiement is less than 10 days away!

City of Lebanon

Today was a really cool day. Alannah and I had time to drive around historic Lebanon, Tennessee and we were allowed to privately tour The City of Lebanon Museum and History Center all by ourselves. It was a great opportunity to have the museum all to ourselves and to spend time studying the history of this unique town. The disaster history of the town and surrounding area is actually pretty incredible! We'll post some pics of our day and week over this weekend.

End of another week of touring

The week began with quite a drive into Tennessee. The mountains were amazing in the early morning fog and nothing beats watching thunderheads form over the mountains.

As the week progressed, we were amazed at the number of Tennessee residents that really had no idea how many tornadoes actually occur in Tennessee. We talked about New Madrid, tornadoes, H1N1 and many other subjects while touring the state.

The librarians we met were outstanding and the people were so welcoming, it was hard to leave the eastern side of the State!

We want to thank Ginger from Jonesboro for going above and beyond the call of duty by taking Zephyros to the garage and making sure she was fixed after our breakdown...This woman is MUCH more than a librarian! She's our hero!

As for Theresa in Blountville...where do I start? We wish we could take you home- you belong on staff at Chasing4Life for you are TRULY twisted!

Due to the breakdown, we had to cancel (postpone) our stop in Athens, Tennessee, but arrangements are being made to return to Tennessee and present in Athens soon.

Now, as the week draws to a close, Alannah and I are in Nashville looking out over a busy Labor Day weekend. Please everyone, drive safely. The two of us are going to take two days off ourselves and enjoy a little of the nation's Country Capital.

From the road...

Sorry we have not had an update in a while, the tour is taking all over and time has been a precious commodity! While Alannah and I are out on the road, Cathy is back in Nebraska getting another chase vehicle ready, Cory is outfitting his new ride and Jim has been working as well! This weekend we are in Skokie, Illinois and then we head to Tennessee for 2 weeks so the schedule is a full one! It looks like upon our arrival back home we go right into an Omaha School tour and then back to Tennessee and then Illinois again followed by a run in Iowa! What a fall!

The feedback from Libraries has been great and we have met hundreds of really great folks and have acquired quite a few new volunteers ready to start training in disaster recovery next year as well.

As usual, there are negatives on the road like lack of sleep, bad food, busy days and vehicle maintenance, but overall it has been a good tour so far. We'll try to keep you posted as we travel, but if you are dying for little bits of news every day, we are still Twittering as best we can so hit us up on Twitter!

Dorothy has a new home

At 1PM today, Dorothy's keys were handed over to Dr. Shawn Carlson of the Sci-tech Children's Museum in Aurora, Illinois. Dorothy will be placed in the museum later this month after completion of a massive construction project that will give her a "wing" of her own in the museum. The new display will host not only Dorothy, but over 200 pictures from her history, a display of past educational events, and a new disaster preparedness display that will feature the recent storm in Eldora, Iowa and the Chasing4Life/NATL activities there.
Below we have plced some photos of the highly emotional day. Speeches were given by Dr. Carlson, David Alexander, Eddy and Alannah.

Dorothy

Well, the count down begins. First thing in the morning we leave for Aurora, Illinois where, at 1 PM Alannah will hand over the keys to Dorothy to the Sci-Tech Children's Museum where she will spend the rest of her life. A sad and happy day all at once. If you are in the area, please come and see the hand-off. We'll be there autographing Chasing4Life coloring books all morning!

(Picture: The original Dorothy)

That's HUGE!

By the way, here is how big Eldora's hail was!

Check out the news story!

Some fantastic news coverage from Eldora can be seen by clicking HERE.

We want to thank the entire C4L/NATL Disaster Recovery Team for their tireless efforts, dedication and HOURS upon HOURS of hard labor with no sleep!

Greg-No, that is NOT an OSHA approved method of climbing onto a roof.

Marie- Humidity is good for your hair.

Eddy-You cannot put coffee in your IV bag!

Cathy-Quit calling us slackers!

Sue-The woman eats trees!

Nicholas-Do you ever calm down?

Erica-They know the kitchen is full of water...calm down!

Kieth-Now THAT'S what turns me on! Drive that truck!

Terry-When are you moving to Nebraska?

Heather-Old people in love...YUK!

Alannah-Hey, you're famous!

Chad-Who you gonna call?

Dan- Don't feel so special. He hits ALL the parked trucks!

Nikki- Welcome back! It's about time!

We leave Eldora

The team has left Eldora. Below are some pics for you to look through. We hope to have more up here soon. Erica and Kieth have run into a hail storm and Dan, Chad and Nikki ran into a little T-storm activity as well. Cathy, Sue and Nickolas have all made it home, and we will be retiring here shortly.

The town of Eldora truly became a home for us this week and we want to make sure we thank Ian, Ted and Joyce for being so gracious. Relationships were started that we hope will flourish for a long, long time.

To our Eldora EMT's...Eddy is drinking water and feels much stronger. You are the BEST! THE VERY BEST! The way you took care of Eddy on Saturday was awesome!

To Eldora, we will miss you and we wish you the best of luck.

Eldora Pictures