MAN FIRE STATIONS AROUND THE CLOCK

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 17, 1993                   TAG: 9303170395
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
MAN FIRE STATIONS AROUND THE CLOCK
THE RECENT incident at the Holiday Inn-Salem is just the latest example of how the Roanoke Valley has taken unity out of the word community. How much stronger we would be as a united community has been much debated, but we cannot continue to bury our heads in the sand when it comes to the safety and welfare of our citizens.
Surely in an urbanized county as large and populous as Roanoke County, it makes good sense to man our firehouses 24 hours a day to protect our citizens. The differences in response time from a manned vs. an unmanned firehouse can be the difference between life and death, especially where there are small children, elderly, or infirmed citizens involved.
To remedy problems such as those that have happened on several occasions, most notably at the Shenandoah Homes and most recently at the Salem Holiday Inn, we need to take the following steps:
Establish one centralized emergency services center that would be in control of dispatching all emergency equipment in the entire valley.
Verify and re-verify all data entered into the emergency 911 system to assure everyone that they are properly covered.
Man all firehouses 24 hours a day with paid firefighters so that we can assure the quickest possible response times - day or night.
The volunteer firefighters in the county are an asset to our community and are very dedicated people. Citizens rely heavily upon their contribution.
We cannot, however, demand that volunteers do certain things such as man the firehouses 24 hours a day. For this reason, we must pay the necessary price to protect everyone on a 24-hour basis.
The fact is that we do pay the price one way or the other, so let's pay with a few more dollars rather than with higher-than-necessary property losses and insurance premiums. Most important, we must protect the lives of all of our citizens. DICK ROBERS ROANOKE

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB