Sunday, October 9, 2005

I left the Van Vorst home shortly before 0600 hours. The temperature was only 40 degrees as I headed south. It was a good day to be leaving Chicago as the Chicago Marathon was being held today. That event really snarls traffic all over the downtown and lake front areas of the Windy City. There was very little CFD radio traffic as I headed through town.

I heard a couple Gary, Indiana medical calls as I traversed that area. I arrived in the Indianapolis area around 10am and gassed up and got a McMuffin at Mickey D’s. I heard a few Indy FD runs as I passed through the area and headed east on I-70 towards Dayton, Ohio. It got cloudier as I headed east and just before I turned off I-70 onto I-75 it started to drizzle. Great! It was noon, and I had hoped to visit all 14 of Dayton’s stations in the afternoon as they were relatively close together.

I stopped at Dayton Station 12 and a very nice firefighter helped me update my Dayton map. Since 2002, Dayton has gone from 13 Engines and 7 Trucks to 7 Engines and 5 Trucks. Station 14 is the only station left with both an engine and a truck. The rest of the stations are single engine houses, single truck houses, with one heavy rescue only station.

The firefighter told me that Dayton is really in tough shape as only 45% of the residents pay any taxes. The rest are either infirm or receiving welfare. Most of the Dayton fire apparatus is still yellow, with only the newer units in the new white over red scheme. Companies are running with four men (including the officer), but many firefighters have to work overtime as the department is running quite short handed.

The fire department runs the cities ambulance service and transports. In 2002, there were 7 Paramedic units and four BLS ambulances. Now there are only 7 Paramedic units- and they are super busy. Very often, suburban medic units are called upon to respond to runs within the Dayton City Limits. Dayton does have fire mutual aid agreements with these same suburban departments.

I stopped at Station 8, now home of Ladder 8 and Rescue 8, but could not get anyone to answer the door. As it continued to drizzle, I decided I’d just take station photos and got Stations 8, 4, 1, 14, 11 and 10 before heading to Cincinnati for the night. When I was just a few blocks from Station 11, Ladder 11 and Rescue 11 were sent on an EMS run. I lost them in traffic and couldn’t locate the address they were responding to on the map. Ladder 11 had a Sutphen tower.

I saw innumerable traffic accidents as I drove through town. The driving conditions were not at all that bad, but the driver conditions appeared to be terrible. I was waiting at a red light in the right lane and car also was waiting next to me in the left lane. All of the sudden, I hear this screeching sound and this car in the other lane skids almost 50 feet, almost rear-ending the car to my left. I decided it was time to get out of town. I had originally intended to stay in Dayton until 1700 hours, but enough was enough.

I was happy that the trunked Dayton FD system worked well on the Pro-96. As I headed south on I-75, I was able to pick up the Dayton FD simulcast (VHF channel) almost all the way to the motel which is16 miles north of downtown Cincy. Of course, as soon as I checked into the motel, the Dayton VHF channel stopped working. That’s too bad, as the Dayton FD is very busy.

There are NO photos for Day 3