Opinion - Alarming Complaints

Tuesday, 19 September 2006 05:14

Alarming Complaints

September 13, 2006

Last night at the planning board meeting, I had the pleasure of witnessing small-town America at its finest. It is always spectacular to realize we live in a society where everyone can stand and voice their opinion, whether concurring or dissenting, without fear of retribution. (Let me state that I am 90% for the project.) I am not completely sold on the project in its entirety, but agree with most of the planning. I thank the Planning Board for the dedication to the job and pray that they complete exhaustive research before deciding on an outcome - possibly approval with some conditions.) God Bless America!

Unfortunately, my evening ended on a sour note. As a resident and fellow volunteer firefighter and I were standing outside the Community Center discussing the evening's events, we were approached by my colleague's neighbor. At first, I thought her verbal assaults were in jest, but quickly realized she was deadly serious.

She complained that the firehouse siren had gone off the previous night at 12:45AM. She further stated that our pagers are sufficient enough to alert us of a call and to get us to the firehouse and that all the fire calls are false alarms and are completed within 10 minutes anyway. I was almost speechless at her irate manner.

Recently, the Department Chief has made the concession that the siren SHOULD NOT be activated between the hours of 11PM and 7AM. The siren is controlled by a timer. The siren timer malfunctioned and will be checked. (This happens from time to time in the event of a power failure or surge at the firehouse.)

More importantly, most of the firehouse pagers are over 10 years old. Do you know anyone who carries a 10 year old cell phone? (Even new model pagers notoriously hit dead spots, or the programming fails.) The technology is exactly like cell phones. The service is not always available. Her response, to my stating this, was ‘Well, then buy new pagers'.

The entire Fire Department operates on a budget of roughly $36,000 per year. This includes building maintenance, vehicle maintenance, equipment and supplies, training, utilities, etc. Perhaps, those who are annoyed by the siren would support a fulltime Department and associated employee salary and benefit costs? See how annoyed they become when their new tax bill arrives.

My wife and child are awakened most times when my pager goes off in the middle of the night. Unless they are lucky enough to have my pager fail. Fortunately, my family understands that I am doing something good for our community by providing fire protection at a next-to-nothing cost.

Finally, to her statement that all fire calls are 10 minutes or less., That is a wish every volunteer has. That would mean no fires, no motor vehicle accidents, no basement floodings would occur, no assistance needed by the Police for lockouts or domestic violence and no tree limbs down in the middle of your street or on your house. Unfortunately, this is not the case. These things happen and the Fire Department will be there - whether it's a false alarm or not.

To end this, I say if you take exception to the way the FD is notified of; responds to; or handles calls, join us and work with us to make us a better department. We are a VOLUNTEER department. We meet, train, drill, and provide fire protection to Merchantville on OUR time. We don't ask for anything but a few dollars a year to buy new equipment, gear, etc.

I have 2 questions for the residents of Merchantville. What if it were YOUR house, your family members were involved in a fire or accident, your basement was flooded and what if no one answered the call because the pager was old, new system failed, forgot to charge the battery, was working in the yard and was not within earshot of the pager? Maybe the truck sirens would alert the fireman

To the lady who heatedly complained on Tuesday night to a couple of guys that are trying to do something good for their community, a simple ‘thank you' would have been sufficient.

Thank you,
Ryan Hummel
Niagara Fire Company of Merchantville

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