From July 21-27, eight firefighters from Bucks County (Lingohocken Fire Co., Hartsville Fire Co., and Upper Makefield Fire Co.), Chester County (Berwyn Fire Co.), and Montgomery County (Bryn Athyn Fire Co.) traveled from Pennsylvania to provide Hurricane Katrina relief effort to West Hancock Fire Rescue in Pearlington, MS. West Hancock wasn’t far from landfall for the Hurricane, and was devastated. Many homes are gone; others are still heavily damaged. Numerous church groups are in the area – hundreds of people – helping to rebuild, and are planning to be there for at least five years. West Hancock is an all-volunteer company that is running somewhere around 1,500 calls per year or more. They cover what are supposedly ten of the deadliest highway miles in Mississippi (as well as some in Louisiana), which is high on the list of number of fatal accidents in the country. They also cover an industrial park that includes GE Plastics, Calgon Carbon, and several other chemical facilities including one that treats/cleans contaminated water. Their Chief lives in a trailer behind the station, as his house has been condemned since the storm, but he hopes to move back in a few weeks to a new house trailer he put on his home site. He puts in 12-16 hour days at the station right now, not really focusing on his fire extinguisher business much due to the efforts needed to keep West Hancock running. He has a donated GMC SUV Chief’s car from Bridgehampton, NY that has 162,000 miles on it and a big crack across the windshield (it hasn’t been a priority to fix based upon the available funds). The Chief’s car runs on just about every call they go on. They have Bristol’s old Ladder 51 (International/Snorkel) but no funds to insure it or do the ladder testing on it so it is parked beside the firehouse. They do have a newer structural engine and tanker, but are running a 1983 Spartan/E-One engine (donated from the Chicago area) as their rescue engine and that is the workhorse of the fleet since they like to keep the newer engine in town when they run the Interstate – which provides many of their calls. The rescue engine is showing its age. They have little or no tax or donation base for the next 2 years or so as the population (3,000 before the storm, 800 now) slowly returns. Mutual aid is minimum 10-15 miles away, and ambulances (AMR in Mississippi, and Acadian in Louisiana) take anywhere between 15-30 minutes to arrive in the area.

Lingohocken Fire Company’s 1973 Hahn that was donated to the City of Waveland (a fully career department with two stations that is two towns over from West Hancock) in 2005 is still running as a 1st out piece there, and Point Pleasant’s old Field 41 is running with Claremont Harbor FD, an all-volunteer department that is based in the Chief’s backyard (literally) and is also two towns over from West Hancock.

Before the storm, West Hancock had 30-40 active members, but many have since moved away, leaving them with a core of about 5-6 active volunteers to run all of this. Their members don’t have much time in their lives to do any work at the fire station, as they are still rebuilding their own lives. While the area firefighters were there, we handled 13 runs in six days, including a mutual aid woods fire we had to go about 15 miles to get to, where we backed up the only other engine there that had two firefighters on it. We had the tractor of a tractor-trailer well involved one night, several nasty wrecks, and a number of medical runs in town. We also helped hang about 78 sheets of drywall to work on finishing the second floor of their station; did a make-over of their rescue engine (installing tools and Mansaver bars cannibalized from other donated trucks they have that don’t run); sorted through all sorts of donated equipment; and generally tried to put their station in order along with keeping an eye on the several hundred relief workers that were working around town (it is hot down there). In addition we conducted an air bag drill Thursday night for four different area departments – about 30 firefighters – they are hungry for any training they can get. Humane Fire Co. of Royersford is sending four members down August 1 for a few days. All of us who participated found it extremely worthwhile, and many want to go back again.

It should also be noted that two other Lingohocken firefighters spent almost two weeks assisting West Hancock in June. They camped out in their mobile home behind the West Hancock Fire Station with their two sons and responded to calls, along with working on the department’s computer systems to get them running smoothly.

West Hancock really needs a newer Chief’s vehicle, a newer rescue engine, and some updated air bags/hydraulic rescue tools. They do not need turnout gear (they got a FEMA grant for that), nor SCBA (they’ve received good donations of these).

A group is also collecting funds for them:
Charity In Action
P.O. Box 455
Bryn Athyn, PA 19009-0455
www.charityinaction.org
volunteers@charityinaction.org

Charity in Action will match any donations earmarked for WHFR that they receive, up to $10,000 total, before September 1. West Hancock may be getting a Homeland Security AFG grant for a new apparatus – IF they can come up with the matching funds ($5-10k). If you are interested in having a presentation to your community group on what is going on down there, let me know and I will see if we can get one of our team to come talk to your members about our experience.

Greg Jakubowski
Battalion Chief – Lingohocken Fire Co.