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City receives $100K water rescue grant

By Howard B. Owens

Press release: 

With a $100,000 grant from the New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, the City of Batavia Fire Department will help expand local emergency response teams and first responders throughout the County with equipment and training to reduce and respond to water emergencies.

The money will equip and train all first responders in Genesee County, to include 17 fire departments, five law enforcement agencies and three EMS agencies with water rescue awareness training and a basic water emergency response bag. Attica Fire and Police departments were also included with this grant.

In addition, this grant will also allow the City Fire Department to provide an annual water safety seminar for Genesee County residents to include topics such as: pool safety, open water safety, flooded road safety and what resources are available in Genesee County if you have an emergency.

“In our rural setting it is most likely that a police officer will arrive on location first,” said Lieutenant Bob Fix of the City Fire Department and Special Operations officer responsible for securing the grant. “With the basic kit and training supplied by this grant, an officer will be equipped with the knowledge and equipment to call for more advanced help and to try and effect a safe shore-based rescue.”

The City has been providing some level of water rescue protection for more than 50 years with minimal training and mostly donated equipment. Recent events in the City and Genesee County over the past several years have prompted more training and better equipment in order to provide adequate and safe response to residents.

City Fire Chief Jim Maxwell said, “We are pleased to have been awarded this grant through the New York State Homeland Security Program. These funds will be utilized by City Fire and Genesee County first responders to enhance water rescue response capabilities across the county. We would like thank the 24 area fire, EMS, and police agencies for their support of this initiative which will provide basic water rescue kits to emergency response vehicles throughout the county.”

All fire departments in Genesee County participate in the Genesee County Mutual Aid Plan. While the City of Batavia Fire Department will be the technician-level responders, it is important that local first responders throughout the county are trained and equipped for the initial response. A tiered-response partnership not only dramatically increases the capabilities countywide, but does it safely and effectively using manpower from throughout the county.

david spaulding

cool.... love it that "homeland" has all this cash to throw around....... anyone clue me in to when was the last time genesee co. had a water emergency? while you're at it, what is a water emergency ?

Oct 24, 2014, 5:22pm Permalink
Destin Danser

*i aplogize in advance for typos, typed on my iphone* Dave, a water emergency is when someone is in the water and unable to perform self rescue. With all of the waterways in Genesee County this is a valid concern. While volunteer firemen work very hard to remain proficient, very few are trained in water rescue at a technician level that would allow them to enter the water and perform a rescue. And even if they were, their response times (due to the nature of volunteering) are often too slow to save a viable water rescue victim. Having a simple kit in every Sherrifs car could prove to be extremely beneficial, as their is usually a sheriff or trooper within 5 minutes of anywhere in the county. The training for a volunteer fireman to become a water rescue tech consist of thousands of dollars, hundreds of hours, and having to travel downstate to take the final class.

As far as when the last water incident was in genesee county, I couldn't tell you exactly. But they are fairly common. Anytime a car goes off the road and into a body of water, a water rescue team is deployed. Any time a car is found floating in a quarry as happened this summer, water rescue must check to make sure no one is inside, and are often the ones getting in the water to hook onto the vehicle.

Perhaps the best example of the need for better water rescue capabilities is the semi-annual occurrence of people getting hurt or drowning while jumping off of waterfalls (specifically Indian falls) in the county.

There is a need to improve our response capabilities to such incidents in this county. This grant is a worthwhile cause. I agree that we can't just keep spending money, but if it's getting spent anyway then some of it may as well come our way.

Oct 24, 2014, 6:21pm Permalink
kevin kretschmer

"The training for a volunteer fireman to become a water rescue tech consist of thousands of dollars, hundreds of hours, and having to travel downstate to take the final class."

Total nonsense. The Fire Coordinator's Office could contact "Rescue 3 International" and have an SRT Course set up to run locally. You could have a competent certified team trained in a weekend for less than $500 per student. In fact, a class was run at the East Pembroke Firehall about 15 years ago. Rescue 3 is recognized world-wide as the industry standard for most technical rescue training.

Oct 24, 2014, 7:35pm Permalink
Destin Danser

In NYS you need to follow the state fire training classes and guidelines in order to be able to perform pretty much anything in the fire service. This means that in order to take the NYS water rescue class you have to first meet the pre requisites which generally include Firefighter 1 (~100hrs), and Rescue tech basic (24 hours), and then finally swift/cold water rescue technician training (24 hours). This is in addition to the weekly training that firefighters perform, and the hundreds of hours of other misc. training that today's volunteers are required to perform. Bringing in a private third party to train would not be acceptable to NYS fire unless the class was taught by NYS fire instructors.

And most years, the swift water rescue class is only offered in montour falls at the state fire training center, which is two hours away and requires trainees to lodge down there for four days or commute. It has been offered closer, but that is not a frequent event.

There is a reason we are struggling to recruit and retain volunteer firemen.. Most aren't willing or able to make the time commitment. I was a volunteer for the last 3 years before having to quit due to not having enough time for it anymore.

Oct 24, 2014, 9:27pm Permalink
david spaulding

thank you Destin for the informative explanation..... now that I do understand a water emergency, I can say that maybe more training is in order.... however what I do have a problem with is the government agency of " Homeland" having the authority to throw money around where ever they please. we the taxpayers have NO recourse such as an election to protest how they spend our money... I feel it is absolutely incredible the amount of money they, Homeland, can spend with NO oversite from the people. just another agency with far too much reach into our lives and worst of all, too much power.

Oct 25, 2014, 10:49am Permalink

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