US&R teams from around the world are engaging missions in Haiti: New York TF 1, Florida TFs 1 and 2, Virginia 1, California 2, and Colorado 1 are working in country, as well as teams from Jamaica, Costa Rica, Salvador, Peru, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Luxemburg, Canada, Russia, Spain, China, France, Iceland, St. Domingo, Mexico, Netherlands, the UK and Colombia.
Every community must understand its vulnerabilities and the potential for disaster, and plan accordingly. The caveat to this is, that despite the presence of a written plan, you can have every contingency covered and discussed, if you don’t understand and practice the plan, it isn’t worth the paper it is written on.
It is imperative that we take this opportunity to recognize that these disasters also affect our own communities, and this is the time when increased education of your customers is important: what to do if something like this happens here, who will respond, what your capabilities are and how you plan to address your needs in a disaster.
Maybe it’s the observation that many of the politicians who are quick to take credit for the nation’s preparedness are slow to ever visit a fire station, or maybe it’s my expectation that instead of having to beg for the table scraps that our law enforcement brethren leave for us, we might also get a seat at the main table, but I just don’t see the fire service gaining the amount of respect that we deserve for the sacrifices we make.
When a man will condemn others but will not subject himself to the same ethical standards, that, my friends, is a hypocrite. We talk about people living in glass houses and the logic for their not throwing stones, but we often fail to hold people to their statements that they made to get them to […]
I’m distressed that a comment got sent to my spam filter regarding an earlier post and for that I apologize. The poster made the comment that he didn’t think I’d print it. As it is, I would hope by now that readers understand that I welcome opposing views, because it is only by listening to what others […]
And then, there are the profiteers. My intent with Firehouse Zen is not to use it as a place to vent, but as a place to enlighten. Venting may be entertaining for some, but for the most part, productive it isn't. So let's talk about why opportunists would be against credentialing, which should probably be […]