For all you people on here, I know you love hearing stories of how the deuce was used for good, and you all want pictures. But all I have are some videos I took off my cell phone so they kind of suck due to 40mph+ winds and having to move all around too.
We had a ridiculous storm hit us today, raining about 4 inches and flooding everything like there is no tomorrow. Trees down all over, I cut up a few of them with chainsaws. 25 calls in 9 hours for the FD. I got on the rescue at 3:30pm after watching close up as a crew of firefighters and some civilians almost died, and didn't get off for more than 5-10 minutes until about 10pm.
NOTE: I know the videos suck, sorry I couldn't do better with the quality/timing.
End result:
Tree - FAIL
Deuce - WIN
All in all, today was chaos, the bay over flowed and the tiki bar is under water, along with boats coming onto land, and lots of other stuff wrong. If you care to know the rest of the story, I'll post it.
If CNN was paying you, I would be screaming. As a guy on the ground, posting good pics, I want to say thanks. You have to respond to things that most people ignore on the news. Job well done, and please don't appologize for the quality of pics, tht most people would never have a chance to see. Keep sending them. (Maybe 1 or 2 more of that Deuce in action...)
Thanks for what you do, and Thanks for letting us look over your shoulder.
__________________
I am a trained professional! Do Not Attempt this stunt at home.
Go to a buddies' place where he can hold your beer and get it on video!
I do try to get all the pictures I can, although there usually isn't time. The truck just left about 3 minutes ago for a house fire, but I can't go because I need to go to work very soon. I'll try to get some pics of the flooding today. That deuce doesn't see much action other than wetting down certain fields and stuff. We're doing a controlled burn sometime soon so all of our brush trucks and a few regular engines will be out there assisting. I'll get videos of that. It will burn fast and hot. There's a lot of it.
He's saying the low quality of the videos isn't a problem because you aren't a professional journalist paid to be there and you are are there to be doing something else, so this is strictly an additional effort on your part to share your deuce's capability with the rest of the community.
OK, So here is the full story with a few pictures. I wish I had time to get much better ones of all the chaos.
The first call we got was at 3:30pm Saturday. I responded from my house like normal, 1/4 mile from the Fire House. On my way, I'm coming up to the street I need to turn down. The engine turned out of there heading south (same direction I was) and I see a blue flash. I look up and go "Sweet! Transformer explosion!" Then in slow motion I watch the engine lock its brakes and turn hard right into the parking lot as a telephone pole collapsed across the street (This is a main highway). It missed the engine by a couple feet, and had it not been for the driver's quick reaction (He's one of, if not the best driver we have), a crew of 6 FireFighters may have died right there because the pole would have landed on the cab. The pole managed to fall in between 2 more cars that were coming northbound and another lady swerved to miss it and hit a smaller pole. There were several cars with trapped occupants because wires were laying over the cars, in which case we have to sit and wait for the power company to come shut it down. I watched this all from maybe 50 ft away at most. Then a cop that was going to the same place the engine was going blocked traffic in front of me, so I had to turn around and go back a few blocks to go another way. All the traffic lights were out, so everyone just stopped at the light staring at each other like "uhhhhhhh" so I went around them. All highway traffic was re-routed around the fire house, which sucks because we are 1 block in and this made everything hard to get to. Now we have the rescue and 1st due engine tied up with that mess the telephone pole, with our 4th back-to-back job coming in. Thankfully the officers cleared the scenes so we didn't have to leave the station, but then one comes in and says that pine tree fell on the building.
So we move it to the ground with the deuce, and continue to answer call after call. We cut up/moved a few trees in the roadway on a side street. Sat and watched a tree in the wires burn for 2 hours, checked out wires down/trees on wires all over the place, and everything else you can think of. Totaled out with 25 calls between 3:30pm and 11:55pm.
Here is one of the lagoons that runs out to the bay, and the tiki bar that everyone in town goes to. The place with all the boats around is a marina farther up that street. I stopped at the Tiki bar to check stuff out, and when I realized several cars were about to flood out, I went inside and told them. They just looked blankly at me, puzzled because this has not happened in almost 20 years...
Note: All of these photos were taken at 8am Sunday, with the tide OUT. The red lines on the photos are where the water was the night before.
Descriptions
Picture #1 is the right side of the tiki bar, to the far right of the paved parking lot. This water is normally like 2 feet lower.
Picture #2 is the full paved parking lot, or as much of it as I could get.
Picture #3 is one of the wooden walkways that normally goes between the boat slips. It's hard to see so I outlined it sort of, and if you look closely you will see it underneath all that water.
Picture #4 is the paved parking lot, just closer to the lagoon.
Picture #5 is the stone parking lot to the left of the tiki bar.
Picture #6 is the stone parking lot on an angle.
Picture #7 is the stone parking lot, just closer to the lagoon.
Picture #8 is the marina parking lot. If I was standing in this same spot last night, I would be in the water, along with my car that's next to me.
Picture #9 is the marina, just a little farther back and to the side.
The Following User Says Thank You to pyrogod117 For This Useful Post:
Nice job! I drove by as you guys were pulling that tree down. You guys sure were busy last night. The scanner didn't stop all night. I saw 3 or 4 blue flashes. How many transformers actually blew?
Well just 2 blew when that pole fell. After they hooked it back up a few hours later (incorrectly), they blew another 4 fuses and shut down anything north of Mrs. Walkers, Riviera Beach, and Sunrise Beach. Also Lacey Road.
Clinto was kind enough to explain for me, as I was busy re rigging the canvas on the M-135. I just want to thank you for using your rest break, to snap some pics to share with the rest of us. Whenever you get the chance, please keep them coming! I love seeing that truck in action.
__________________
I am a trained professional! Do Not Attempt this stunt at home.
Go to a buddies' place where he can hold your beer and get it on video!
Deuce vs. Tree That Fell On Fire House
