The in basket: The way e-mails make the rounds these days, you may have seen the one about labeling phone numbers in your cell phone as ICE or I.C.E., for In Case of Emergency.

I just saw it for the first time, sent in by Clay Weyrick. It evidently originated with a British paramedic who had too often been unable to identify which number in an injured or killed person’s cell phone should be called to notify the person whom the phone owner would want to be told about such a crisis. Even calling a number labeled “Mom” can be a mistake if Mom is too emotionally fragile to deal with it over the phone.

The paramedic urges everyone to enter the best number and name it ICE, so emergency responders can make the key call to the correct person. If you have more than one, call them ICE1, ICE2, etc.

The out basket: You wouldn’t think there’d be a lot to say about such an idea, but urban legend debunker Snopes.com, has several paragraphs on the subject. 

Short answer: Snopes says it’s a true story and a good idea. BUT…

Use it in addition to, not in place of, more traditional ways of getting this word out, such as a card in the wallet near your photo ID. 

Even if they find ICE in a cell phone, responders often can’t be sure it’s the patient’s phone, and  it can be out of power or damaged. They might also not be able to get to a given phone’s preset numbers, given the variety of phones in existence. 

In any event, hospital personnel or those dealing with the patient after the paramedics deliver them are more likely to benefit, as they are the one’s who try to reach the family.

Snopes also said that e-mails saying an ICE entry will enable hackers to drain your minutes or introduce viruses ARE hoaxes.

The in basket: Jane Myers  of Olympiad Drive in South Kitsap, one of the Harper area residents in favor of the Kitsap County’s planned alteration of Southworth Drive through Harper, asked in July whatever became of the project. I had lost track of the proposal and wondered myself if the impending departure from office of County Commissioner Jan Angel, a key proponent of the work in the face of opposition among the property owners to be affected, might be the end of it.

The out basket: Since Jane asked, there have been news stories bringing us up to date and revealing that the project is still planned, regardless of Jan Angel’s decision to run for the Legislature instead of reelection. 

The state Shorelines Hearings Board in late August rejected an appeal by the project’s opponents, which was based in part on the changed slope of the road and loss of landside ditches, which they feel will increase contaminated roadway runoff into the bay or onto the beach. 

They have asked the hearings board to reconsider, the kind of  reversal I’ve never seen happen after an initial ruling, in court or otherwise. A final decision is due this month. After that, the opponents can go to court to try to stop it, and opposition leader Rebecca McCoy says she will, if it comes to that. 

The project has been on the county’s road improvement list for a couple of years, and now is expected to show up on the 2009 project list, due in December. Continued appeals could delay it further.

The work would add four-foot shoulders for bicycles and pedestrians to the road from the Harper Dock to Olympiad and a foot in width to the travel lanes. It’s estimated to cost $910,000. 

The in basket: Bob Edwards proposed at a recent meeting of the Manchester public safety group that meets each Tuesday morning that legislation is needed to require that gas stations be ready with generators to pump gas in a prolonged power outage.

Not only will drivers need fuel to get around, but people with generators will need to refuel as the outage drags on. 

I told him I’d ask the county’s Department of Emergency Management what it knows about the subject.

The out basket: Phyllis Mann, head of the county’s DEM, said some stations have made themselves generator-ready, but she has no list of which ones. She will be trying to create such a list and asks that any service station that is prepared to operate during power outages tell her so at dem@co.kitsap.wa.us or (360) 307-5870.

In the meantime, she encouraged gasoline customers to ask at the stations where they fill up whether the stations’  equipment will run on a generator and whether they expect to have one in service if the power goes out. 

Politically, she’s reluctant to be directing buyers to particular service stations and interfering with private enterprise, she said, so will decide what to do with her list at the time of an outage. How long it is likely to last will be a key criteria. She’ll put it on the DEM Web site when she decides it’s warranted.

She is unaware of any campaign, past or present, to pass a law requiring stations to be generator-ready, she said.

The DEM Web site is at www.kitsapdem.org. No later than Nov. 15, the site will have a streaming video on generator and carbon monoxide safety, a partnership program with Puget Sound Energy, she said. It will join other videos that already are there on various other emergency preparations.

The in basket: Claudia Kilburn of Poulsbo writes, “Going down Finn Hill in Poulsbo, I have encountered a school bus coming up the hill.  There is a turn lane in this area and when the bus stops and engages its red lights (are) vehicles traveling down the hill required to stop?  

“I have stopped each time,” she said, “and braced for honking from the vehicles behind me (which didn’t happen!).  Please let us all know how to handle this situation.”

The out basket: No, those in Claudia’s lane don’t have to stop in that situation.

Kat Peterson, driver trainer for North Kitsap Schools, puts it this way. The paddle stop sign on the side of the bus controls the lane the bus is in and the lane next to it when it’s extended as the bus stops to pick up children.

There is a lane between the bus and the lane Claudia is in when she meets the bus, so vehicles in that lane needn’t stop. Were it a two-lane road, rather than the three-lane road it is, oncoming traffic would have to stop too.

No traffic in the bus’ lane and the lane next to it may pass the stopped bus.

This puzzle confronts drivers on three-lane roads all over the county. Most often someone in the oncoming lane where no stop is required will be sufficiently uncertain of the law that they stop to play it safe. So, more often than not, traffic in both directions stops even though oncoming traffic isn’t required to. 

As with other such locations with three or more lanes, Kat said, the buses won’t let students off where they have to cross the street. That bus or another will come down in the opposite direction to let those students off.

She also noted that oncoming traffic in the turn lane, wanting to turn left, may do so as long is the car doesn’t travel past the bus’ paddle stop sign. NK school bus drivers are instructed to stop far enough back from an intersection to eliminate doubt in an oncoming left turner’s mind that the turn in front of the stopped bus is legal.