Reprint from the Progress Times - July 25, 2008
©Progress Times 2008 - All Rights Reserved

 

Fire department responds to Hurricane Dolly

 

By Ricky Reynoso

Even before Hurricane Dolly approached, the Mission Fire Department was working to better prepare the city, according to Administrative Assistant Miriam Acevedo.

“On Tuesday before it hit, we were passing out sandbags and even delivering,” Acevedo said. “We had people out there until one in the morning. I mean everyone from adminis trators to firefighters was passing out sandbags. We even had people from Animal Con trol helping out. Everyone was working.”

According to Acevedo, about 100,000 sandbags were distributed.

Acevedo said despite recent incidents, approximately 10 volunteer firefighters were on hand assisting the department. One volunteer even visited the home of a woman who was in a coma and needed assistance.

“Her family called to let us know ahead of time,” Acevedo said. “We sent the volunteer out there and he taped and boarded up her windows and left some sandbags. Even though some of the volunteers couldn’t really help with fires, they still helped field calls because we were really swamped throughout the day. They were really helping the community tremendously.”

As Dolly passed inland, the fire department began receiv ing numerous calls about power outages, such as hap pened in the south side of Mis sion. As the night wore on the department kept fielding those reports to AEP, but were soon told to stop.

“At a certain point they told us to stop calling them,” Acevedo said. “They said, ‘we know the lines are down. Only call us if there are live wires.’ At that point all we could do was wait like the rest of the citizens in the Valley.”

Three fires were reported on Wednesday. One was a house fire at Keralum Avenue and the other two were tree fires at Third Street and Leonor Street. Fire crews were dispatched to all three fires.

Acevedo said some resi dents called with concerns about stray animals in their yard.

“Animal Control wasn’t responding at the time,” said Acevedo. “So we asked that they try to keep the animals in their garage for the time being. Now Animal Control is work ing to pick up those stray ani mals.”

According to Fire Chief Ricardo Saldaña, some of the waste-water facilities were without power, with the plant in south Mission currently running on emergency gen erator power. He said the Pub lic Works department put in place a contingency plan.

“If we have a failure, then we’ll bring in vacuum trucks,” Saldaña said. “We’ll lift the waste and dump it at the sewer plant and keep the lift stations working like that.”

Saldaña said there were no problems at Mission Regional Medical Center, adding that the rain was not a heavy downpour.

“What helped us out was that there wasn’t any major flooding,” Saldaña said. “There was some minor street flooding, but not like we have had in the past. This time we had more wind damage than any flooding event. Our drain age system also worked the way it should have.”