Back in August, Asst. Chief Wayne Kewitsh of the Richfield FD in Minnesota sent out a request to our readers for some help. His department is planning a new 2-story station and they were looking for any good information on whether pole, slides or stairs had the highest injury rates. He got several good comments and emails from readers with some valuable information and leads to some documented studies on the subject. (You can read the original request and the Comments for it HERE.)
Chief Kewitsh has asked us to pass along their decision as well as his thanks to everyone who took time to write in and help: The research the readers led us to along with some other stuff led the powers that be to “allow” us to have poles in the new station. We did speak with a CalOSHA representative in Los Angeles and he said that he’d prefer a pole over slides and stairs also.
So there you have it, in case you’ll be faced with a similar decision soon.
* * *
One of our friends sent along this humorous but sad story (HERE) from a village near Cincinnati that seems to be content electing incompetents to the Village Council. Their village fire department, which is all-volunteer, needs a new fire engine. They have two and every ten years they replace the older of the pair, moving the 10-yr.-old pumper to reserve status and putting the new one on the front line.
But now the Council doesn’t want to buy a replacement pumper. They never planned ahead, you see, by setting aside some funds annually for their capital replacement obligations. And now the older pumper, age 20, is shot and unusable entirely while the front-line piece is entering the era of constant maintenence if it continues to be used daily.
What is particularly silly are their ill-prepared public statements at the last village council meeting. After the fire chief explained that if their remaining fire engine needs a repair, they have to rely on neighboring towns for fire coverage, one of the Councilyokels brilliantly piped up and said, “I cannot support the purchase of a new fire truck, a second fire truck, for a volunteer fire department.” Still another Councilyokel chipped in, “If [the FD] were full-time, I could understand it.“ Supposedly, the Fire Committee has been studying this issue for a year now, according to still another Councilyokel. And after a year of “study” nobody ever explained to them the concept of leasing? Did this committee ever hold any meetings?
When the fire chief explained that national standards call for a minimum of two pumpers, regardless of the size of the department, another gem of information was dropped into the minutes-of-the-meeting when one of them proclaimed that the citizens would be safe if the village had no fire engine in service because they would receive service from all the other nearby communities. Now you wonder how “all the other nearby communities” feel about being volunteered into expanded coverage without anybody asking them first.
Lately we’ve been seeing a few similar examples where elected officials are willing to shuck their responsibilities and leave fire protection at the mercy of neighboring departments’ willingness to pick up the extra coverage with no remuneration or contract to do so. So what’s going to happen when everybody shuts down and waits for the nearest good-neighbor to arrive? They just might be 50 miles away. Sure, that sounds ridiculous, but not nearly as ridiculous as this irresponsible village council in Ohio sounds.
We’d better get this equipment checked out now, even though it’s not yet 20 yrs. old. And I’ll get more coffee going before it gets 20 minutes old. See you in the day room.
