Here is a five minute presentation of everything you always wanted to know about 9/11.
(Oh, and as for the plane flying into a building, about a year before 9/11, the emergency services in Putnam, Westchester, and other counties just north of New York City, had a drill in which a plane flew into a building, in this case a school. The drill was held just outside of West Point. As a member of a n ambulance corps in that area, I participated in that drill.)
As a former Emergency Medical Technician, I can attest to the necessity of proper and state of the art equipment in responding to emergencies on all levels and in all situations. You cannot respond to a critical situation with only the hope that your supplies will be there. You can only respond confidently KNOWING that you have adequate, up to date, and effective materials. Emergency Services deal with matters of life and death, sometimes their own. If one does a bit of soul searching, I am sure that you would agree that your life is worth the price of a non-rebreather, oxygen, fuel, even a fire hose. Any responsible politician would have to agree.
In Rick Perry’s Texas, Firefighters Forced To Pay For Gear, Engine Fuel
Under Gov. Rick Perry, Texas has slashed firefighting budgets.
Posted: 9/9/11 07:56 PM ET
WASHINGTON — In Texas, firefighters aren’t just battling the wild fires raging around Austin and Houston. The state’s first responders have also had to deal with budget cuts affecting everything from fuel purchases to hoses and oxygen tanks.
In some cases, fire officials say, firefighters have had to pay out of pocket for basic necessities like proper protective gear and fuel to get them to the scene. One fire department that battled the blazes in Bastrop County had to pay for a hose, recalled Bastrop City Fire Chief Henry Perry, speaking to The Huffington Post during a break from working the wild fires.
“That fire department has been on this fire every day,” he said. “Before this fire, they were having to buy stuff out of their own pocket.” Perry said he knows of at least one other department whose firemen had to pay for equipment maintenance and engine fuel.
Earlier this week, HuffPost reported that Gov. Rick Perry, the GOP front-runner for president, had signed off on millions in firefighting cuts as part of the state’s most recent budget legislation. The Texas Forest Service’s funding has gone from $117.7 million in the 2010-2011 budget years to $83 million in the 2012-2013 budget years.
Severe cuts have also hit assistance grants to volunteer fire departments throughout Texas. The grants decreased from $30 million per year in 2010 and 2011 to $13.5 million per year in 2012 and 2013. These are cuts that firemen are now dealing with.
“I don’t agree with it. I understand what Governor Perry did,” said Henry Perry (no relation). “Do I like it? No. I don’t like it at all.”
The cuts come at a time when Texas fire departments have already been slowing purchases of new fire trucks and other critical equipment as a way to save money, said Guy Turner, president of the Texas State Association of Fire Fighters. The association had endorsed Perry in his re-election for governor in 2010.
“What I fear will happen is equipment will start to fail and put our members at peril,” Turner explained. “You can imagine if you’re inside a structure fire and your engine quits.”
Turner doesn’t have to imagine it. He said he knows of firefighters whose breathing apparatus has malfunctioned during fires. There have also been “instances of hoses failing during the course of firefighting operations.”
“For years, public safety was the golden calf — that we were untouchable,” Turner said. “Nobody’s untouchable. It is a shame. They are basically putting a price on how much our lives are worth. It’s disturbing at best.”
for the rest of the story, go to: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/09/rick-perry-fire-department-cuts-texas-wild-fires_n_956307.html
