Greetings RRA Neighbors,
You should be aware that Ladder 34 stationed at the Ridgeway Firehouse continues to be out of service. Year to date through August, Ladder 34 has only been in service 32% of the time. In the past 4 months, Ladder 34 has only been in service for 9 out of 123 days or 7% of the time (see below chart). This gap in service levels puts the South End of White Plains at risk as a Ladder truck now must come from elsewhere in the city. However, the whole city is at risk when equipment from one location is called elsewhere as it leaves that area uncovered and exposed.
In the past week, we had 3 residential structure fire calls in the south end and Ladder 34 was out of service. This resulted in longer response times as well as the need to call in a Ladder from Hartsdale/Fairview as White Plains Ladders were busy at another residential fire. One of those fires was in the heart of our Rosedale neighborhood and is described below.
On Tuesday September 7th there was a fire in our neighborhood at 20 Carriage Way. The family is safe and extremely thankful to our WPFD for their professionalism and kindness. The fire call came in around 3pm on Tuesday afternoon, with Ladder 34 out of service once again. Engine 71, which responds out of Station 7 (on the corner of Ridgway and North St.) was first on scene in approximately 3 minutes, however they were by themselves without the help of a ladder truck for approximately 4 minutes. This was a very dangerous situation for all involved. Ladder 32 at Station 6 (Mamaroneck and Maple) was the closest ladder truck, and had about a 7-8 minute response time to Carriage Way. Luckily, the residents of the house were able to evacuate themselves, but had they needed to be rescued, Engine 71 would have had a tough time trying to rescue them and put the fire out with only 3 members, a nearly impossible task.
The city has not given the south end communities or the fire fighters any indication that they will put Ladder 34 in service at the beginning of the school year (Monday-Friday 8am-6pm), as was their policy the last 2 years. We continue to speak to the Mayor and Common Council about returning Ladder 34 to full-time status and maintaining proper staffing across all our public safety organizations. With school starting and this being an election year, it is a good time to email the Mayor, Commissioners, Common Council members and Council candidates about our safety concerns. There is no appropriate answer as to why the south end and WP as a whole does not having 24 hour ladder truck coverage.
