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Not only was it slow, but also irresponsible, and in a way amateur. The Dominion does put enough money in the system to have appropriate coverage, and response times, and if not given such should take measures of demand.
This is the argument that irks me the most. Not that it's unreasonable to expect an appropriate response time, but that Dominion owners are somehow more deserving because they pay more in taxes. Taxes are based on the value of the property. Same for everyone across the city. One area is no more deserving than any others.
I pay a siginficant tax because I live in an historic district/urban center. Do I see much of that? My roads are still filled with potholes while those on the north/nw rapidly developing areas are getting the new roads (and residents are still complaining). So my tax dollars are going for an area of town I never even see. But you know what? That's OK. That's part of living in a community - we all contribute for certain goods/services which are best performed at a community rather than individual level, usually.
EVERYONE in this city has a right to expect appropriate response times, not just owners of high end properties. I'd have a lot more sympathy for the argument about response times if the "dominion owners deserve more" argument was left out.
My thoughts on city services in new developments? Before any new building of developments is even approved, new roads, new PD/FD if necessary, plans at least for new schools should be in place. If not completed then at least initiated before a single house goes up - AND this is partly paid for by the developers. This will never happen, of course. No one will plan that far in advance and it takes significant resources. I do recognize that this wouldn't have been the case for the Dominion, which, if I understand correctly, was on county property when built. In that case, however, what plans were in place within the county to respond to emergencies? Would the county have responded any faster, and if so, maybe these annexed areas need to have some agreement between county and city for services. Before annexation, the city needs to have a plan in motion to address these elements as well. Everyone shares responsibility.
As for attacks on the firefighters - that's what I gleaned from the article. Not praise for their hard work and sacrifices, but criticism, even with one firefighter hurt.
A review of practices and procedures is ALWAYS good, but I'd like to see it applied to the entire city, not just one area. AND I'd like to see a little gratitude for the sacrifices these folks make.
As for 24 trucks responding to the incident within a poor time frame...that to me sounds like someone got on the phone, or radio and put some fire under someone running the department, and in return the individuals in charge overcompensated in order to "look good", but rather made it look even worse be leaving holes in coverage.
Not likely. A big fire always calls out many trucks.
More likely is that the initial response was to a "house fire" - i.e. one structure on fire. When they arrived and started working, recognized it was much more significant than the usual one house fire, and called in reinforcements (not because of the value of the house, but probably due to the size and location - i.e. was there any potential for brush fire?).
Possibly our city council needs to take a second look at that "stimulus" plan they are sending to Washington for over $1bil. Sounds like this city could use a little more infrastructure support than convention center expansion.
Everyone may pay the same percentage of the the appraised value of their home, but let's be frank: folks living in areas with more expensive properties are paying more in actual dollars every year.
Last I checked, services do not cost less in areas with lower taxable base and we don't pay police officers or firefighters less if they are stationed in less expensive parts of the city. In other words, any areas with a more expensive tax base are subsidizing areas with a lower tax base.
While that is how it works in government and is usually most fair, everyone ought to expect an appropriate level of service, particularly if you involuntarily have had to start paying taxes to a city -- if the city is going to be aggressive in its annexation policy of ETJ areas, they are putting themselves on the hook for services.
It sounds like in this case the firefighters did the best they could and did an admirable job getting there; what is troubling isn't the response in this one case, but rather what it says about the preparedness of the city to handle multiple major emergencies if that should ever occur.
As wCat says above, maybe we do need some more infrastructure support to be considered as part of any stimulus monies received.
While everyone complains about the SAFD response time, one can only speculate on the response if the Dominion was still in the county. While there was likely a volunteer department in the area, to get anywhere near the response that ended up coming to the fire you would have had to bring it volunteer departments from ALL over the county, as is still done today with other small cities and unincorporated areas.
This would have taken far longer than the time for the collective SAFD response, I am quite sure.
Well, some very strange details could be found if one looks at all of the factors.
1: Bexar County Tax assessor has this house listed under 23 Tuscany Dr., when in fact the map shows it under 23 Tuscany Court, (small details but when you are using GPS, as the FD does, this matters)
2: There was an accident that happened just seconds which pulled the fire truck away from the closest station, hey, it is gonna happen, Murphy's law
3: there was road construction which hampered the fire truck getting into the Dominion
4: The first two emergency vehicles which come into the Dominion are escorted by security guards to the location of the emergency, the ones after that are the ones that got lost
5: This guy David Russell, homeowner doesnt even claim a homeowner exemption on his property, yet back in 2004 when he first bought this property he was sued for non payment of taxes?
Honestly, I'm not really sure what can be done. The part of the story that seemed odd to me was that the two nearest stations (which presumably includes the one right across the street from the Dominion) were already tied up with the accident on Boerne Stage Rd. If an actual fire occurs, shouldn't there be a rule that says, hey, the fire department would serve a better use fighting this fire than acting as paramedics for an accident when there's already EMT's and whatnot on the scene?
I don't know much about the emergency response world though... I hope (and believe) there's a valid reason they don't already do that.
First of all, you don't know that there were already EMTs on the scene. When a fire company is closer to a medical emergency than an ambulance or EMT first responder unit, then the fire company is also dispatched to provide that intial first response until the EMTs arrive. Firefighters are trained in advanced first aid and many are also EMTs, and fire trucks carry emergency medical equipment. That's a good use of resources IMO.
Furthermore, in the case of a car accident, even if EMS is nearby, a fire company will be dispatched in case there needs to be a heavy rescue (e.g. the Jaws of Life) or in case there is a fuel spill. If they get to the scene and their services are not needed, they return to quarters.
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Originally Posted by allaboutsa
Having one fire truck for a substation that is near a busy interstate highway and responsible for providing the necessary coverage of a large segment of San Antonio's northwest corridor is unacceptable and is NOT a legitimate excuse.
Who said there was only one fire truck at that station? The SAFD's website says that 18 stations have a pumper and ladder truck. I don't know if this is one of them, but it might be. I'll try to drive by there tonight and look.
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Originally Posted by cheermomof4girls
My dad told me (he is an ex volunteer fire fighter) that there are a lot of stations that don't even have water trucks. And at that, they don't hold very much water. He said that there have been several historic places downtown that did not survive a fire, possible for that reason. They rely on the hydrants.
According to the SAFD, every station in the city has a pumper truck. Pumper trucks always have water in them so that they can start putting water on the fire as soon as they arrive, or to put out small fires (like car fires) without having to hook-up to a hydrant. But pumpers don't have enough water to fight a typical structure fire for very long, and they're not designed to. It's just enough for them to get started. While they're doing that, the pumper engineer connects to a hydrant. That's what the hydrants are for. Big water tankers are only needed and used for brush fires and at the airport.
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Originally Posted by TX_AGGIE13
I believe the city has poor structuring in the FD coverage of certain areas. I agree that there should be more coverage in more populous areas, but I fail to find a logical argument to all areas not having sugnificant coverage.
It's hard to cover the edges of the city without wasting resources. However, SAFD is working on improving coverage of the outlying areas as part of their current master plan. As part of that, a new station is planned in the DeZavala/I-10 area.
Quote:
As for 24 trucks responding to the incident within a poor time frame...that to me sounds like someone got on the phone, or radio and put some fire under someone running the department, and in return the individuals in charge overcompensated in order to "look good", but rather made it look even worse be leaving holes in coverage.
I doubt it. I'm quite sure the extra trucks were sent because it was a big fire and the intial crews on the scene called in a second alarm. There was a big house fire in my old neighborhood in the Medical Center a couple years ago and 16 trucks were dispatched for that.
Quote:
Not only was it slow, but also irresponsible, and in a way amateur. The Dominion does put enough money in the system to have appropriate coverage, and response times, and if not given such should take measures of demand.
If the truck(s) from the nearest station hadn't been away on another call, the response time would have been fine. As others have pointed-out, it's unfortunate but that's way the cookie crumbled in this case. If the SAFD were staffed and equipped so that every address in the city had redundant resources available to maintain a <5 min. response time all the time, it would cost a fortune.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mpd33
The Dominion is not in Bexar county? What county is it in?
Around here, when people say they live "in the county", that means they live outside any municipality.
I tend to agree with the earlier poster who said that people's perception of time slows down dramatically in an emergency. Five minutes can seem like an eternity in an emergency. Even the president of the Dominion's HOA said that previous complaints of slow repsonse times were disproven when they checked the logs. It will be interesting to see what their gate logs show in this situation.
Last edited by TexHwyMan; 01-05-2009 at 01:50 PM..
chaka - I don't disagree with what you are saying, and I don't feel like the Dominion deserves "better" coverage than other areas really. I do however believe that The Dominion deserves significant coverage, and don't think the reaction time was such no matter the situation. There was a great point brought up above that the city has no problem with annexing areas like the Dominion to rake in the tax dollars, but does not cover such areas with services as they should be. Also, no one can convince me that when the City of San Antonio decided to annex the Dominion it was unbiased upon the "money".
As for what would have happened if Bexar County were still responisble it's a mute point because they are still in some ways responsible for certain occourances in that area. I am glad to hear that the city is implimenting ideas of opening resources in the DeZavala & I10 area, but should have been done sooner. Hopefully as some of you have suggested the City will do the right thing with their stimulus proposals as well, and the Convention expansions while benefical deffinately shouldn't have priority over safety.
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Sounds like this city could use a little more infrastructure support than convention center expansion. 
