I'm sure many of you are aware of the tragic fire in Lake Jackson last week in which 5 people lost their lives. I grew up in Lake Jackson. My parents still live there, as well as many friends. My mother is a teacher, and knew both of the boys who passed away, so this really hit home. The City of Lake Jackson has an all volunteer fire department, and ambulance service. The fire department is probably a five minute drive from either of the cities fire stations, and about the same from the fire station of the smaller neighboring City of Clute (also volunteer). It occurred early in the morning, when almost every firefighter was available, and the streets would have no traffic. Yet it was a documented 13 minutes until the first units arrived on the scene, where they watched a family perish before they could set up equipment. Honestly, personally, I think that at least four of those involved could have been saved. The department struggles with the volume, and struggles to respond to calls, especially during the day, when most of the volunteers are at work. The city's fire protection rating is a poor 5, (on a scale of 1 to 10) so their fire insurance rates are high. They did eventually go to a paid ambulance service for 12 hours of the day, because they had difficulty getting volunteers to respond. There have been several unsuccessful attempts to get the city to go to at least a partial professional fire department. The past two fire chiefs have been very resistant, citing the hard work by the volunteers. The Mayor and City Council have struggled with other issues. The fact remains that the city has grown to 30-40,000, and the area possibly as high as 100,000, without any paid firefighters (excluding a few chiefs), very little training, and precious few professional ambulances. I'll admit that my perspective is a little skewed. I worked professionally for six years on an ambulance, in both paid and volunteer departments. I directed a county ambulance service in a rural county. I also served on a volunteer fire department. So I feel pretty in tune with what the capabilities and limitations are of volunteer and paid fire / ambulance services. So I thought I would ask for some help from you. What do you expect from a fire department or ambulance service? How fast should they respond? Should you expect to have an advanced life support ambulance, with a paramedic, able to use a heart monitor and medications? Should you expect the department to try to improve the fire protection rating, to lower the cost of fire / homeowners insurance? Should the standards be lower for volunteer services? What do you think? Fire / EMS Protection has been a tough issue in Houston, which has a professional service, so I would think many of you would have opinions. I'm writing a letter to the editor and mayor. Like I said, I have people in Lake Jackson and the Brazosport area that are important to me. They deserve the best protection they can have. ------------------ Stay Cool...
Here is an interesting link dc: http://www.fema.gov/emi/eenet.htm ------------------ In order to be a success in life, you need 2 things: 1. Don't tell everything you know.
