Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 13, 1990 TAG: 9007130687
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Why on earth didn't local officials work out such an agreement years ago? It's mind-boggling they did not. If there had been an agreement, would four people who lost their lives last December in the fire at Shenandoah Homes retirement center be alive today?
Maybe not. But it's appalling in any case that the retirement-center fire raged for nearly half an hour before county volunteer firefighters got to the scene. City firefighters, with a station closer to the fire, could have gotten there in three or four minutes.
If the new city-county "simultaneous response" pact had been in effect last December, firefighters from the city's No. 10 station near the airport would have answered the Shenandoah Homes call and started battling the blaze before the county firefighters arrived.
As it was, no one was on duty at the county's Hollins Fire Station when dispatchers took the Shenandoah Homes call. The city station was manned with paid firefighters. But the county didn't ask for the city's help at the scene. They are, after all, separate governmental entities.
It's as if the county would have been making some concession to the city, forfeiting some portion of its pride or independence or self-sufficiency, had city firefighters been called to fight the fire. Instead, lives were forfeited.
Under the agreement scheduled to take effect Sunday, firefighters in either locality will respond to a fire at retirement homes and other buildings housing large numbers of people without waiting to be asked to help.
That carves out too limited a common ground for coordinated services, but it's better than nothing. City Fire Chief Rawleigh Quarles and County Chief Tommy Fuqua, who worked out the plan, say it's a first step, and other agreements will be forthcoming. That's good.
Better still would be a consolidated fire department under a consolidated regional government - where leaders wouldn't need six months to work out wrinkles of politics and vested interests before simple logic could prevail.
Opponents of consolidation say "cooperation" between the governments is all that's needed. But if that's so, what prevented the city and county from achieving better coordination of fire protection years ago? Why did they have to wait until a fatal tragedy? Will dead bodies prove a prerequisite for other forms of cooperation?
The valley could have had more fatal fires in the six months it took officials to come up with this "simultaneous response" agreement for saving lives.
They have proven once again that cooperation, while desirable, is not good enough.
by CNB