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Title: Rolling Closures A Possibility For Fire Department
Source:
CBS
URL Source: http://cbs3.com/local/Philadelphia.Fire.Department.2.1807094.html
Published: Jul 16, 2010
Author: Walt Hunter
Post Date: 2010-07-16 07:23:41 by noone222
Keywords: None
Views: 488
Comments: 16
New cuts may be coming to the Philadelphia Fire Department and they could include rolling closures of firehouses. What if you stopped by your local firehouse and found the firefighters who would normally be first to answer your call weren't there at all that day? It could happen. The city announced as many as four units each day may be taken out of service in neighborhoods city wide in hopes of saving more than $3.5 million in overtime to ease the city's budget crunch. "He's (Mayor Michael Nutter) rolling the dice and he's playing Russian roulette with people's lives," said Bill Gault, President of Local 22, the firefighters' union. Unlike past permanent shutdowns of five engine and two ladder companies, which prompted large neighborhood protests, neighbors apparently won't be told in advance or perhaps at all if their local engine or ladder company is being put out of service. "It's smoke and mirrors. The citizens don't have any idea there's nobody in there," Gault said. When asked if the rolling service cuts were an attempt to disguise fire department cutbacks in order to defuse neighborhood protests, Mayor Nutter said: "We've been very straightforward quite frankly. We're not disguising anything." Nutter said the rolling cuts will enable the city to avoid layoffs and added that protection for residents will not be impacted. "When you call 911, we show up, that's the bottom line," Nutter said. Poster Comment: Go figure, duh !!!
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#8. To: noone222 (#0)
Rolling fire dept closures were tried in Washington DC in the last years of the administration of crackhead mayor Marion Barry. Unfortunately the fire emergencies did not conform to the closure schedules. Pesky fires and other emergencies kept popping up on neighborhoods when the local fire station was closed. One particularly hideous occurrence, going back to that time, was when a city bus went out of control (the jerk driver had not belted herself in, made too fast a turn, slid out of her seat ...) and pinned some innocent lady against a building. To free her they needed some special truck that the DC fire department had only a few of. The call went out for such a truck: one was out of service on a never-never repair schedule, one was at a fire station - but it was a station closed that day, and the last was unavailable (I forget why). Without that truck, the medical team had no choice but to amputate the woman's leg to free her from the bus! It was realized, rather quickly, that (1) fire stations had already been distributed throughout the city in a rather minimalized way, so further reductions were immediately cutting the coverage below the safe level, and (2) the fire stations were already heavily burdened with responsibilities - putting out fires, of course, but also sending out special heavy equipment as in that bus accident and providing ambulance services - which were being abused by being used as free taxi service in the DC ghetto (by one person in particular, and Mayor Barry refused the Fire Dept's pleas to remedy the situation), so that (3) any additional cutting or burden shifting would be like drilling a hole in the bottom of a boat.
#9. To: Shoonra (#8)
In D.C. any fire is a good fire ... needs a nuke !
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