Staffing in Roanoke Part III

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This post is just for a little clarification as well as some “case and point” examples for the nay-sayers and those who wanted examples.

First of all, Jay at Firefighter Hourly.com has talked about the two part (now three) post on staffing in Roanoke. Check out the post here and the podcast here. FireGeezer also covered the story here.

I believe that Jay understood me exactly, and in talking to many firefighters I believe that I got the point across. However, there are plenty of firefighters who still don’t think it is a big deal to simply mark trucks out of service for long periods of time for any reason at all.

I did not realize that my point would be proven so quickly, but yesterday was a perfect example of what I meant. Yesterday, Engine 2, Engine 3, Quint 7, and Medic 7 were reported to be out of service from 0800 – 1700 hours (8am til 5pm). That meant that at station 2 we were left with ladder 2 and medic 2, at station 13 we were left with ladder 13, and at station 7 we were left with NOTHING.

The interesting thing is that the neighborhood groups around station 7 were told that their service would not be changed (to which there was a collective laugh by the firefighters). If indeed engine 7 was still in service, one of the trucks would have remained in service (I should hope).

I can’t make this stuff up.

As for solutions. Well I have been working on solutions for all of this including the medic thingy. Sure, they are my ideas or that of the firefighters which I believe will work. Of course, all of it costs money. If it didn’t cost money, we wouldn’t be working the way we do.

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