91 Iowa Department of Emergency Management, Windsor Heights, Iowa, November 27, 1145 Hrs (1645Z)

Iowa Department of Emergency Management, Windsor Heights, Iowa, November 27, 1145 Hrs (1645Z)

Addison looked around the room. Everyone was busy working at their stations, pouring over the data coming in from DC. The previous director had access to the data but wasn't sharing it with the rest of the team.

"Hey Mollie?" Addison said. "Can you come here?" Mollie walked over to the desk that Addison had taken over.

"Sup?" Mollie asked.

"Do you still have all of the locations we marked?" Addison asked.

"Yeah. I sent copies of everything to my self." Mollie looked quizzically at Addison.

"Ok, I want you to get with GIS and plot all of it on a map. Any locations you have, give it to them. We will get it up to DC to help everyone."

"Got it." She grabbed the little laptop she carried and walked over to the desk where the person working GIS was working. Addison leaned toward the mic that positioned on the desk and hit the button.

"I'd like to see branch chiefs and ESF leads in the conference room at 1300 Hrs, Again that is all branch chiefs, and ESF leads in the conference room at 1300" Addison said.

"What time?" A voice asked. "1300? Can you use normal time?"

"Whoever said that, please come up to my desk." Addison said loud enough for the people in the room to hear her. She had a sneaky suspicion that the folks in this EOC had never been trained in using 24 hour time. A middle aged man walked up to the desk.

"I'm the one who asked about the time." He said quietly. "Roger always had us using normal time. Said it looked better on reports."

Addison had been raised on twenty-four hour time. Various members of her family worked in law enforcement, EMS, or fire. It was second nature to her. "Who all in the room does not understand twenty-four hour time raise your hand." Almost every hand in the room raised with the exception of the folks from FEMA and a few people from the Iowa National Guard's presence in the room. "Ok. We're gonna have a crash course on twenty-four hour time... Everyone get out a piece of paper. While you're doing that, let me explain why we use what people call Military time. It's because it's not ambiguous, like AM and PM are. If I say to meet me at 7, do I mean at 7 in the morning or 7 in the evening. If I say meet me at 0700 or 1900 that is more clear than just saying 7. 0700 is 7 in the morning, 1900 is 7 in the evening. Everyone got paper out?" Everyone, even those that knew twenty-four hour time held up pieces of paper. "Ok, I would like everyone to write out, vertically zero to twenty-four; if a number is lower than 10, please put a leading zero " She waited a moment, and then said "Next to zero write twelve AM, next to 01, write 1 AM, and so on. When you get to 1200 or twelve PM, continue going, but 1300 will be 1PM, so on and so forth. Any questions?"

"Uh, What about the number twenty four at the bottom?" A voice asked.

"Put 12 AM next to it." Addison said. "The only time 2400 is used is right at midnight, otherwise it's 0000. We will get you all up to speed on this, don't worry. So, now that you have a handy dandy chart, what time is 1300?"

"1 PM" came a chorus of voices.

"Very good."