bmfd231

Thanks all for all your great input. I am in the very early stages of proposing a team in our town. We do have a number of divers who have various degrees of experience. I myself have been diving since 1974, althought mostly when I head to clearer water.

Just curious, what would be involved to start a dive team, other than having a certified diver. Are there courses available for special ops under ice or extreme condidtions that may exist? What specialized equipment would be needed to safely develope a team, how much would it cost and what would be a minimum dive team?

Enjoy flying (pilot since 1990) with instrument rating scuba diving, although not in the north boating and photography

Once again the government has found a new way to get more money out of our pockets and into theirs undeer the guise of saving us. If they were really worried about us, then they would find a way to save the 26000 people that die in cars each year

I do not believe that these trucks should be equipped with red lights. Use of these lights are for true, life threatning emergencies. To permit these vehicles to have these lights just so they can get through traffic for a breakdown, is wrong. That is what police and fire are for!!

Thank you, now you have added, by way of your response to me, what should have been in your original article. Your response brought focus to the reasoning behind your article and why you made the claims you did. I was not attacting you, trying to trash your site nor do I have a bone to pick with you but I felt your article was unsubstanciated and incomplete. A walk around one site and one short sighted contractor should not result in blame on a whole industry. We have government to do that. Constuction workers are not to blame for these dangerous sites, Construction companies and their owners are. Do they consider firefighters, I doubt it. Your article deals with two main points, dangerous work sites and shoddy construction and they really are two very different issues, I would think two separate articles. Are work site hazzards preventable, yes, but only if the contractor makes it part of his daily routine. What was the result of your officers complaint to the towns code enforcement office? What did they require the contractor to do and was he issued any violations? Do you consider that the site would now be safe with what was done were you to fight a fire on this property now? In closing, I have nothing against you. In fact I have enjoyed your various photo's over the years and hope that they continue in the future. As you correctly state, there are alot of fly-by-night companies out there and some who are legitimate who fall in the same category. Do you realize that all you need to get a license in Westchester is to give them $300 bucks and a certificate of Insurance and you got a license (they just want the money). No test to make sure that they guy actually knows how to do this work, as is required of electricians and plumbers, which brings me to the second focus of your article, shoddy workmanship. Shoddy workmanship can have a wide meaning to it. It can mean that the molding is poorly done or it can mean that the structure is unsound. There are many different levels of contractor out there, many who understand structural work, and others who do not and do it anyway. It is just not simple to say that an industry is to blame. I agree with you that more can be done to make any worksite and safe place, not just for firefighters, but for the guys that work there. So as you can see, there is alot more to it. With your response to me, you have advanced this article closer to completion. The last step is to use your article to teach and to point out how we can be safe on these worksites. Develop solutions that we can all discuss openly. Make us want to think about the solution.

To claim that construction workers are trying to kill ff's is a bit much and an irresponsible statement. Based on the way that 635 wrote this article, you should never dig a hole to build a building, never have any construction equipment on the site and never throw garbage in the dumpster, how pristine and how nieve. What are the cheap and shoody construction techniques used here, did not see any pix's for 635 to back his claim. Yes, a site should be secure and closed off so that others can't wonder on the site and it should be kept orderly, but holes are dug on construction sites, heavy equipment is used, piles of garbage will develop and some of it will be conbustable. In short, construction sites, big or small are dangerous places. They are places where anyone who goes on site must be careful and take precautions, especially firefighters. His officers are smart to pay attention to the dangers and maintain a plan of attact should something happen. This article also contradicts the articles on the Ardsley firehouse demo. I see in the pictures that all the same dangers exist here, piles of garbage and combustables and soon to be holes galor for the new foundations. But these articles are only posiive with no complaint. I don't get it, where is the consistency? My feeling is we need substance in these blogs, not sensational rantings.

You have to remember that each of these trucks are custom made to each departments spec's. Becasue of that, you are bound to have problems regardless of who you buy from. The key is not whether they can build it, as most look into when doing due diligence, but what kind of post purchase service department and commitment they have to resolving problems We purchased 2005 KME mid mount last June with the Preditor Cab and no pump. We have had our share of problems, in fact many! The truck has been out to KME twice, once last summer for two weeks and recently for 6 weeks. It also spent three weeks at Ruscon late last year. Up until the recent visit to KME, post purchase service was non existent. It was a battle to get any repairs. Many of the initial problems were poorly routed wires and hose along with loose screws and computer problems/programming. Ultimately it came down to mostly aerial and jacking problems caused by computers. The most recent trip to KME was the most productive we have had all year. They made many changes, ran the aerial over 26 hours to get it right. They fixed all but two items on our very long list and it appears, with just a few more programming issues, most of the problems are gone. Ultimately, I believe KME makes a strong truck and it is well made. The mechanics I have spoken to over the last year claim it is one of the more sturdy trucks made on the market. Most of our problems have been with the new ICAN computer. There have been lots of bugs to work out. KME has finally made a commitment to deal with post production trucks with a new Service Manager. He seems committed to getting the problems solved.

Briarcliff took Best Aerial Platform Was a great parade as always. Mt Kisco should be commended for a terriffic job

Yes, they are very good, but remember, you are not in the US and the same safety measures that you have become acustomed to here may not exist in that foreign port. I was on a cruise with Norwiegan in the West Carrib. and tended at Cozamel. The ship had about 1800 passengers. They were using private contactors for the transport to and from the ship because the boats were much larger. On the return close to cruising time, the officer in charge was overloading the boat, just kept piling them on until a couple of us went over and demanded he stop the overload. He did immediately but did not remove the excess passengers which were hanging off the side. Had it been rougher seas, the boat could have capsized. He never would have done this in the US, so you need to use common sense on any cruise. I have been on 8 of them and they are alot of fun, but you need to pay attention and remember where you are.

TOO BIG!!! With over 4000 people on board, moving around and getting on and off the ship, especially when tending, will be a nightmare Stick with ships under 80,000 ton...more fun

None of the articles really state what type of insurance Utica is providing. Clearly he is receiving Workers Comp, but it is not clear what insurance he is going after. It sounds to me that this policy is an vehicle policy, since the are requiring that he be in the vehicle. If that is the case, I don't see how he can apply for that insurance because it did not involve the apparatus. I do not believe if NY's no fault kicks in this case, but you never know what a good lawyer can do

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Date: 01/26/06 Time: 18:15 hrs approximate Location: Briarcliff Manor - Rt 100 & Chappaqua Rd Frequency: 46.26 & Briarcliff Frequency Units Operating: Car 2051, R37, Eng 92 & 93, 53B2, Briarcliff PD Description Of Incident: Cement Pump truck rolled over and accident with car Closing Rt 100 Writer: bmfd231

New York will always lag behind the other states when it comes to training Volunteers or Career FF because the monies earmarked for emergency services from the Federal Government never get much farther than the states general fund. The three stooges in Albany (Pataki, Silver and Bruno) take our money and spend it on parks, personal pork, parks, etc, anyplace except where it is really needed. Did I mention they love to create parks! Until we find a way to take back our state thru referendums to limit their powers and expand the peoples, this will not change.

The companies that exist today, whether it is Pierce, KME, Seagrave, etc no longer have the people working for them that made most of those companies a success. Most of the employees today are there to just collect a paycheck, American quality is dying! Since receiving TL40, I have gotten a deep lesson in what we did not look at when choosing the truck, a KME. The truck is a beautiful truck, clean lines, something you are proud to look at and own. We have had some problems, some serious requiring it to go back to KME or spend some time at our local repair shop. Collectively, this truck has been unusable for over 8 weeks since we received it in May. The problems are not the issue with me, it is a complex truck which will have some bugs to work out. The problem is KME itself. They are set up to build trucks, not deal with them once they leave. Because they do not have a team to deal with the details and problems that the assembly crew leaves, you have to search in the company to find someone who actually knows something about the problem you have, not an easy task in a company that large and spread out to a number of facilities. That is the reason the truck was out of service for so long. Now you might say that KME is a new company to fire apparatus, but from other people I have talked to, it is really not to different in the other companies. The "old timers" are retiring and leaving the company in the hands of employees that do not have any interest in providing a quality product. It is pretty sad if you ask me!

You should consider setting up a separate site apart from the village, town county official site. This way you maintain full control over any content and regulate its use. If you set it up with a public and member only section, set up links on the official sites to your sites pulic area. The village, town, county will have not complaints with this method. In the member only section, set up alias's for each member with the ability to forward to there email address. This will give each member a common FD address that is easy to remember. You can also set up a check list to sent to multiple members and/or group alias's to sent to all or special groups. These addresses should be private.

Briarcliff uses Ruscon, the village takes care of the minor items

We have scheduled our wetdown for Tower Ladder 40 Date: September 10, 2005 Time: 11:00 am to 4:00 pm Location: Main Firehouse 1111 Pleasantville Road Briarcliff Manor, New York 10510 Join us for a great day

EFDNY, I think that your statement could not be any further from the truth. I believe that you view the competitive nature between the companies as feuding, its not. The firehouse has been the place to "bust horns" back to early days. Sure, there is politics, but those neever have a permanent effect. I think that you will see that as you get older and get to understand the comaraderie that you only find in the fire dept.

Our department supplies the equipment. This had not always been the case. A strong position taken by a past chief to increase and maintain budgets for such things made it possible for most to have equipment replaced and upgraded.

In Briarcliff we send an apparatus with the ambulance to each in town call, either R37 for the east side and E92 for the west. We look to minimize crews to no more than 4. For each ambulance call the appropriate truck is also paged. One important note is that the assisting truck is not to leave the firehouse before the ambulance. It is to communicate with the ambulance to make sure that its arrival coincides with them. The personnel on board the assisting apparatus are trained on the various ambulance features to actually be of assistance. Once they finish there task, they return to the fh. It works very well.

TL 40 has no pump. Eng 94 is our tender when needed. When considering this truck, putting a pump on was heavily debated. Ultimately we decided to exclude the pump for two reasons, first the loss of compartment space and secondly the element of training. It would have mudded the waters when in fact we wanted to remain a true truck company dedicated to those functions that a truck company does. We think we made the right decision

I would agree it is the salesman. The engineer who was in charge of our truck has made every effort to resolve the issues we have had, within the limits he has been permitted to do so Don't get me wrong, the truck they built for us is everything we could have asked for and more, and the problems were anticipated. The failure to respond was not what we had bargained for and two months of a cat and mouse game was enough.

Great news on your new rescue pumper! A word of caution when dealing with KME, take nothing for granted. We have not had a good experience with KME taking care of problems. Don't let the glitter of your new truck mask they fact it needs to be an operational truck. Good Luck!!!