White Plains Switches Back To County Numbering?

[x635 4,066]

So, I saw in the other thread White Plains has switched back to County numbering, as well as heard it for myself? Anybody know the reason behind this change?

Also noticed another new thing while monitoring the fire. Their seems to be an IC that identifies as "Public Safety #", sperate from the duty chief. Who is this person, and what is their role?

[DRD 0]

City of White Plains Public Safety organizes all emergency services under a single department. This includes Police, Fire, administration of services with private EMS as well as emergency management duties. From what I saw on the news, Public Safety 5 is a deputy commissioner. He was likley there to act as an interagency coordinator as well as a point of contact for the media and relief organizations. A link to the Department of Public Safety, City of White Plains is provided below.

http://www.ci.white-plains.ny.us/safety/safety.htm

Just to throw another question out there, how do people feel about this? PD, FIRE, EMS and OEM all under a single banner with one boss, the commisssioner of public safety. Do you agree with or oppose the idea of consolidation of services?

I for one, agree with the concept. I have no first hand knowledge of this system, but I can see how this would be both more efficient and cost effective for the municipaility. This would also help with interagency coordination at major incidents by providing a unified chain of command from the onset. No bumping heads as to whose scene it is, b/c its everybody's scene. What do you think???

[tbendick 27]

There person who was Public Safety #5 had a very active roll in the fire. Upon his arrival he assumed Command of the fire and had the chief enter the fire building as "Operations".

He was likley there to act as an interagency coordinator as well as a point of contact for the media and relief organizations. A link to the Department of Public Safety, City of White Plains is provided below.

I would have to say he was doing a lot more then this based on the radio transmisions.

[R1SmokeEater 359]

Does "Public Safety-5" have any Firefighting experience ? Is he from within the WPFD ? Just wondering ................

[Truck4 48]

Anyone have a rundown of what stations the rigs run out of (based on county #'s)?

[Guest alsfirefighter]

Would it matter to anyone whether or not he had any firefighting background when he took over IC at that point?

The hardest and most functionally involved position in ICS on the fireground is the operations officer. The IC has no operational decision making he is like the conductor of the orchestra, he gets what operation needs and so on. In the case of that high rise fire, it was (in my opinion only) to free up the chief whom was IC to partake in operations to slide the assistants and deputies and captains down the line to get better span of control.

[DRD 0]

I think this shows that ICS is better implemneted when services have been consolidated, like in the City of White Plains. A high rise fire is a considerable incident in which many units need to be coordinated. I think alsfirefighter is correct in that as the IC his primary function was to coordinate, and not necessartily command at large scale incidents. It does however take a good understanding of ICS to undersatand that this concept can work, but depends on a good working relationship between your operations people and your IC.

[pjm1733 22]

public safety 5 is the chief of the fire department