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Mother And Child Leap To Safety
By Debbie Williams Reporter
Published: Mon, January 28, 2008 - 6:16 pm
Debbie Williams
There are four fire stations in Daphne. Three operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, one does not.
"That came as a shock to myself as well as some other council members although we knew it was a volunteer fire department the idea that volunteer and unmanned didn't necessarily equate to the same thing." Council member Cathy Barnette says it became an issue after a holiday house fire on Cameron Court.
"There's a perception in this part of town that this station is being utilized and operated so there's a community awareness and alarm that we have insurance rates and things with the perception that this is being served from this area."
"I don't know how people can get the perception it has been manned it has never, it's always been a volunteer station." Fire Chief James White says volunteers built the building and work out of that station. "They want us to open station one that's a volunteer station there's no way we can man that. First of all it doesn't have the facilities to open 24-7. Most of all the city doesn't own it, it belongs to the volunteer department."
There's no argument more firefighters and at least one more working fire station is needed. the issue is where do you put it.
"We are so far behind the eight ball we need two additional stations we need one in district one and we're going to need another one in the 181 highway area"
Chief White says two stations would help the city catch up to their needs. Meanwhile, he's satisfied with the job firefighters are doing, pointing to response times of just over six minutes no matter where the fire. "I live in district one," he says, "of course I want firefighters there but I can go to sleep safe that they are six minutes from being at my door if I need them."
Daphne has 28 full time firefighters. They hope to hire six more soon.
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So what, none of Fairhope’s stations are manned overnight or weekends! Just the mice and rats keep an eye on things there. Politicians say it’d cost to much to acutally have real people there all the time! Might even need a sales tax, gasp(like everywhere else). Oh My!! Gonna take a tragedy to improve things.