In light of the extremely heavy snowfall, the Middletown Fire Department is appealing to the citizens of the City of Middletown to assist with the identification and clearing of snow around a fire hydrant. It has become extremely difficult to identify hydrant locations with the large mounds of snow that accumulated from plowing
If you have a fire hydrant on your property, you can assist not only the fire department, but yourself and your neighbors as well by clearing the snow from around the fire hydrant. As everyone is well aware, every second counts in a fire, any delay in locating a fire hydrant may have a negative impact on life safety and the successful outcome of a fire.
The personnel of the Middletown Fire Department are asking that if you have a fire hydrant on your property, please clear it in such a way that fire personnel can identify it. If you know of a fire hydrant that has not been cleared, and you cannot clear it yourself, please mark it and the fire department can assist with clearing it. If you need assistance, please feel free to contact the fire district that you live in.
For any additional information, please contact Deputy Chief Robert Kronenberger. Office: 860-343-5045; Cell: 860-883-7564; email: robert.kronenberger@cityofmiddletown.com.
12 comments:
What are the firemen doing while we are shoveling out fire hydrants?
Why are they not using GIS/GPS to mark these hydrants?
The fire department get paid enough to shovel the hydrants. The also have enough lighting on their trucks to shovel at night time when traffic is non existant. But no, they go to work at night and sleep and then have the nerve to ask the public to shovel!! Hey guys, make a pot of coffee and shovel a few hydrants at night
1) They are probably out shoveling OTHER hydrants. They can't get to them all at once.
2) because GPS is expensive and it isn't going to provide them with an exact location down to the foot. It's only going to give them a general idea. If the hydrant is covered completely in snow, they're going to have trouble finding it.
All the City fire departments are digging them out. With about 1300 hydrants City wide, this is a daunting task with all this snow, and running of emergencies. With around 7800 emergencies a year, which translates to about 21 per day, combined with the fact they are clearing the hydrants as fast as they can, Fire department crews have unburied most of these hydrants 3 times already this year. The departments are asking residents to clear them if possible, or call them if you know the location of one buried. They understand only so many can be found. The City has spent monies in the past to mark most hydrant locations. Most of these markers where either vandalized or out right removed.
Since each homeowner knows their neighborhood the best, they ask for your help. The cost of a GPS/GIS system can be looked at for the future. Since no one could have predicted this amount of snow, it is an expensive cost in tough budget times. It is a system which marks coordinates for hydrants. This information has to be gathered, and software applications purchased in order to download the information and map out their locations.
Instead of complaining each one of us as a community member can locate the one around you, and lend a hand. If you cannot, feel free to contact the departments, and they will be more than happy to come clear it. You are not in any danger, as the departments have resources to deal with the emergency. It does however make their jobs easier if you could identify anything they have missed, or leant a hand to them.
Seriously - Stop whining that your job is to hard to do, Come out and shovel.
If I missed one of my work responsibilities, and my explination was that I had 21 other responsiblities, I would be fired and replaced with someone who can manage a To-Do list with 22 items on it.
If you REALLY can't manage a shovel, then hire one of the two dozen 12-14 year olds in my neighborhood. They're off from school and have been quite happy to wield a shovel for a few extra bucks.
Although then you'd have to come to terms with the fact that the job was so difficult and overwhelming that you had to deligate it to middle-schoolers.
Since I read the request, I have been on the lookout for hydrants and really appreciated the notice letting us know what we can do to help protect the community. This is an unusually large storm and most people are responding in a generous way to help each other out. I don't understand the people who are so negative about this. I'm writing this comment because I'm hoping that BCfire and others who work for the department will realize that vocal minority doesn't represent everyone.
if you're house has a fire i bet you would regret blasting the fire dept about this Pete and Anons. I agree with 3:46 and BCfire. They are asking for people to do what they can, which could be only identifying the hydrants, or making a phone call, and not necessarily shoveling. The snow we've had over the last month has been record-breaking and overwhelming and it's a silly leap to attack the fire dept about it. In fact I went to cnn.com and searched for "fire hydrant snow" and found an interesting video from a year ago about the fire dept in Washington DC asking the same thing. A Google search shows that many many towns around the U.S. have issued similar pleas from their fire departments asking residents to help with this. At least do a little "digging" (pun intended) of your own before assuming that Middletown Fire Dept is being unreasonable.
BCFire maybe you and all the fire departments should talk to the Water Department (DISTRIBUTION MAPS). Think outside of your little world.
To Anonymous 3:46pm. Your comment "I don't understand the people who are so negative about this". Start attending the meetings at the Fire Department and your eyes may be opened.
Bottom line, folks, is that if your house is on fire and and the fire department has to spend even fifteen seconds digging out a hydrant, or more if it's completely covered and they have to find it first as the one near my house was, you could be dead. Then it wouldn't really matter who should have shoveled it out.
I've been shoveling out the hydrant near my house for the past eleven years. After not being able to find it after the second big storm because it has no marker as many others do, I painted the top of a 2x3 red and stuck it in the snow bank.
By the way, my cardiologist says I should not be shoveling snow at all. I take the risk to shovel the hydrant because it could SAVE LIVES!
Thank you all for the comments. The fire departments have been out clearing them, and we have had positive feedback from most of the residents. No one was complaining, as it was so eloquently put. The department was asking for help in locating the tougher ones. We use the distribution maps and wands provided to us from the water department. Thank you for the suggestions. We also locate them by finding the shutoffs in the street.
Thank you for the words of encouragement. Rest assured, we always do our jobs.
For the amount of money you make off us taxpayers, you'd better get the job done!!!Wish I could go to "work" and get paid to knock out 8 hours of sleep.Boo hoo, you have to dig out some hydrants at time and a half. My heart breaks for you firemen
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