My sources in the Cleveland Division of Fire inform me that, as a result of higher firefighter staffing levels on Tuesday and Thursday shifts; Ladder 42 has been open and staffed many Tuesdays and Thursdays since being officially "browned-out" on April 19th.
Moral of the story: if you live in South Old Brooklyn, try to plan your occupied structure fire for a Tuesday or Thursday. Word to the wise. Amen.
Other Division of Fire sources recently informed me that, despite the "Chiefs'" proclamations that browning out Ladder 42 would not adeversely affect fire division response times; response time data is only gathered and analyzed by the Division of Fire for fires that involve a death or significant property damage. And this data is only gathered to CYA when the media inevitably asks about response times in fatal and/or large fires that garner media scrutiny.
Moral of the story: response times to fire calls only matter to the Division of Fire if someone dies or there is a signigicant value loss of property.
Those of us who continue the fight to bring back all four browned-out fire companies in the interest of public safety; evidently we were more right than we knew when we lamented the fact that it will take someone dying in a fire to get the Division of Fire to pay attention to response time issues.
This is no way to run a city.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
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2 comments:
Roger, I think it would be interesting to find out how we can protect the public from public employees who are derelict in their duty to all of us. We need to analyze ALL the response times, right now, before we plan or "brown out" any more facilities. By the way, who ever came up with the phrase "brown out" and what are its origins?
Tim, the only other use of the term "brown-out" that I am aware of is in the power generation/ distribution industry and relating to an "electrical brown-out." I suspect that the Division of Fire is co-opting its meaning for their needs. For background informtion on electrical brown outs go to this web-site: http://www.elect-spec.com/faqbrwn.htm#Brown-out
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