Sunday, October 18, 2009
News, In this Issue..., Atlanta
Atlanta at risk
Does Atlanta's firefighter shortage place residents in peril?
By Mark Woolsey
As day broke on Sept. 21, Atlanta was being assaulted by the latest in a series of flash floods and well on its way to earning a presidential emergency declaration. With swirling waters rapidly rising in homes and people slogging through submerged streets, Atlanta’s Department of Fire Rescue geared up for high-water operations. But there was a major hitch in the firefighters’ plans: They didn’t have a boat.
The flagship city in the country’s eighth-largest metro area had no way to get firefighters out onto flooded streams.
After waiting for a purchase order to be approved, fire officials dispatched an employee to a local marine dealer, says Lt. Jim Daws, head of International Association of Fire Fighters Local 134.
“That rescue boat arrived at Peachtree Battle Avenue and Woodward Way [along Peachtree Creek] just in time to conduct three rescues, and that was pure blind luck, because it took four hours to locate, purchase and retrieve that boat,” he says. “Had that boat gotten there 20 minutes later, there would have been citizens who drowned.”
Two of those rescued, he says, were clinging desperately to a swamped canoe and a street sign.
The problem, says the 26-year veteran firefighter, was the city’s money crunch, which deepened with the Fiscal Year 2009 budget. The fire department had eliminated its special operations battalion, a group of companies with the training and resources to conduct water and high-rise-fire rescues, as well as other procedures. With the company disbanded and nobody tasked with retaining those resources, the boat had been sold at auction.
FIREFIGHTERS NEED LOVE, TOO
Daws is a mighty worried man these days.
He thinks that while the city has been obsessing over crime issues and staffing shortages in the police department, Atlanta Fire Rescue has been suffering through its own, deeper incisions from the budget knife, becoming an organization increasingly unsuited to dealing with 21st century large-city challenges. Atlanta’s fire department has about one-third fewer field personnel than other cities of similar size, he says—a staffing problem that goes back a decade.
But skeptics, including Councilwoman Anne Fauver, a member of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee, don’t see a need for concern. Fauver says that with a large recruit class coming online and anticipated hiring, the problems are being addressed. And, she points out, police and firefighter furloughs that cut firefighter pay by 10 percent have ended.
Daws retorts that cuts of more than 120 firefighter positions, rolling 24-hour “brownouts” of fire stations, the closing of stations in the West End and on Howell Mill Road (Station No. 23 on Howell Mill has been reopened but is still subject to occasional brownouts), and the dismantling of the hazmat and special-operations units have had consequences large and small. He argues that brownouts, temporary closings of stations due to staffing shortages, can lengthen response times because the closest unit to a fire may be temporarily shut down.
The Insurance Services Office (ISO), which rates fire response nationally for insurance companies, recently downgraded Atlanta to the lowest rating among Georgia’s 10 most populous cities. The report dropped Atlanta from a ranking of two to four, with "one" meaning exemplary fire protection, and a "10" meaning minimum standards are not being met.
The report gave harsh grades in several areas. In driver and operator training, Atlanta earned a zero out of a possible credit of two. In personnel, the city garnered a credit of just over 10 out of a possible 15, based on a maximum credit for six people per engine or ladder company. In “distribution,” which assesses the number and adequacy of existing fire companies to respond to built-on areas of a city, Atlanta earned a 2.6 out of a possible four. Insurance premiums are expected to rise as a result.
A frustrated Daws says personnel cuts have led to firefighters being forced to run with a crew of only three on both pump and ladder trucks. That’s far less than the standard set by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), which recommends five firefighters on each kind of truck and certainly no fewer than four.
“Wow!” says Curt Varone, manager of the public fire protection division of the NFPA, when informed of Atlanta’s manpower situation. Varone carefully avoids direct commentary on Atlanta Fire Rescue, explaining the association’s standards are based on operational efficiency and overall safety of the community, as well as safety of firefighters.
“I am surprised that a large metro area is doing that,” says Varone, “but with the budget constraints some cities are under, that’s one of the ways they deal with that.”
Municipal fire protection consultant Harry Carter, who served 26 years with the Newark, New Jersey Fire Department, is less delicate on the topic of Atlanta’s fire department.
“I have never been one to sell fear,” says Carter. “I sell reason. But when you’re not doing equivalent to what the standard calls for, the potential for something going wrong goes up.”
Carter explains it this way: In a residential fire, for example, one of those firefighters on an engine is establishing a hydrant supply and another is setting up overall truck operations, as the third and fourth firefighters are carrying hose into the burning building.
“If you strip away people, something doesn’t get done,” he says. “If, for example, the water supply doesn’t get turned on, then a second company has to handle it. And it slows down the ability to deploy forces. And as you might imagine, fire is a time-sensitive operation.”
He’s even more pointed when addressing the lack of a rescue boat.
“I will refer you to ‘Forrest Gump’ for my answer: Stupid is as stupid does,” he says.
But Councilwoman Fauver downplays the boat issue, saying it was easily remedied.
(Daws retorts that she should talk to the people who had to be rescued about that.)
And she is equally blunt when addressing the numbers-on-a-truck issue.
“A couple of years ago we proposed in the budget that there be four firefighters to a truck, and the union, which had said they wanted that all along, then said they didn’t want that, they wanted a pay raise instead,” she says. “So we offered it to them and they turned it down.”
Most of the fire department’s responsibility, she says is as “first responder.” The fire trucks and other rescue units rush to emergencies like car crashes and heart attacks, not fires. She says she doesn’t think trucks have to be staffed with four to respond to a medical emergency.
And, she says, the dismantling of the hazmat and specialized rescue units is not an issue, because “we now have those people dispersed all over the city. I don’t see that as a disadvantage. The advantage is you can get some of those people on the scene more quickly.”
Daws vehemently takes issue with her statements. He says the union wanted both adequate staffing
and pay. Furthermore, he argues, the recruits won’t make up for the attrition rate. Finally, he says, staffing is just as critical for car crashes as it is for fires.
“Most of our calls are medical emergencies, but that doesn't reduce our staffing needs to respond to fires safely and effectively,” he says. “Having the hazmat and rescue tech scattered all over the city prevents them from responding as a cohesive unit with the equipment they need to do the job.
“Fauver,” he adds, “is a dangerous apologist for crippling the fire department.”
“BEATEN TO DEATH”
Fire Department Spokesman Capt. Bill May says that while the hazmat unit has been disbanded, the truck and the personnel remain, and when appropriate calls arise, “we’ll take people off an engine and put them on the squad truck to respond.”
Councilwoman Fauver admits some 24-hour brownouts are continuing, but she says the situation will improve as recruits are hired and integrated into the force.
Daws counters that in the meantime, his men are spread critically thin, tired, and their effectiveness is suffering.
With the cuts, he says, “the remaining stations are running a lot more calls. It is not unusual to have some stations running 18 to 25 calls a day. The firefighter schedule of 24 –hours on [duty] was predicated on the notion firefighters would have a good deal of time between alarms, but that’s no longer the case, because we’re running these firefighters ragged.”
Daws thinks the city has been both lucky and unlucky as a result. On one hand, Atlanta has not had a major conflagration leveling a large area of the city along with a resulting high body count, such as the Charleston Sofa Super Store fire in South Carolina, which claimed the lives of nine firefighters in 2007.
On the other hand, he says, with fewer men on a truck and a tendency toward extended response times, “you’re seeing a lot more routine fires that resulted in total losses because the fire operation wasn’t as effective as it could have been.”
He cites as an example the Oct. 2 fire at the private Paideia School, which destroyed a longtime classroom building. He says short-staffing made it necessary for the area fire company to wait for backup.
Critics also point to a fire on Dollar Mill Road last May. The first 911 caller alerting responders to the blaze was reportedly kept on hold for seven minutes. City officials have blamed 911 glitches and staff shortages, as well as substantial call volume that day.
Once word finally got to fire companies, say department officials, the first firefighters arrived in five minutes and 17 seconds. Setting aside the 911 delay, the response was within national standards, which call for a response time of six minutes or less, 90 percent of the time.
What’s the solution? Daws says it would take about $6 million to, first, implement an overtime budget to maximize the personnel Atlanta has and, second, hire 75 additional firefighters.
“That would be enough to put us back to four-on-an-engine and three-on-a-ladder-truck, which would be more tenable,” he says.
Daws has also floated the idea of establishing a countywide fire tax district, a mechanism used in many municipalities. Atlanta firefighters would still protect the city, he says, but would be governed by a countywide board answerable to the citizenry, which would know exactly what that tax money was being used for, because it would be a dedicated revenue stream.
The idea has drawn some qualified support, he says, from the current crop of mayoral candidates. But like most fire issues, it has taken a back seat to discussions of police and crime. That, too, may be contributing to fatigue in the ranks.
“We’re not going to talk about it,” says Capt. May, when questioned about the fire department’s staffing and resource challenges, including brownouts. “It’s been beaten to death.”
SPAtlanta Interim Fire Chief Joel Baker was unavailable for comment.
EDITOR'S NOTE: AN EARLIER VERSION OF THIS ONLINE EDITION OF THE STORY INCLUDED AN ERROR-- A "2" RATHER THAN A "24"-- IN THE SENTENCE:
"The firefighter schedule of 24 –hours on [duty] was predicated on the notion firefighters would have a good deal of time between alarms, but that’s no longer the case, because we’re running these firefighters ragged.”
We regret for the error.