Recent Comments
Re: “Not all cruises turn sour”
Sometimes you do just "have to be there", but the memories of the that kind of laugh fest do indeed last a life time.
Posted by
Timothy O'Hara Casey
on 02/21/2013 at 10:06 AM
Re: “Bach tries to rewrite Utilities history”
Nice work Pam, you must feel like a dog chasing their own tail some days, this thing seems to be on the spin cycle all the time.
Posted by
Timothy O'Hara Casey
on 01/28/2013 at 5:41 PM
Re: “City apparently plans to boot ambulance contractor”
Well I'm sure this will thrill firefighters. Hopefully if this goes forward the transport will be staffed by EMS crews hired for that purpose. Other cities that do this have separate crews for that function. It's not enough that firefighters are overloaded with normal tasks, training, continuing education, and maintaining numerous certifications, but hey lets have run an ambulance service as well. Then the FD can be like the utilities dept, a for profit business or should I say an "enterprise" I'm sure that would never cause headaches or problems.
Posted by
Timothy O'Hara Casey
on 12/13/2012 at 10:55 AM
Re: “Misfire”
I believe Pam that you and I are in agreement on this. I didn't misread the piece I reacted to some quotes of men and women I know and admire who did (as we both recognize) an amazing job. We also agree on the point that those at the top have in fact circled the wagons and that void allows for many interpretations of what happened. We still have never been told of a cause now 6 months later, how long can that possibly take?
Posted by
Timothy O'Hara Casey
on 12/12/2012 at 1:33 PM
Re: “Misfire”
Very interesting article Pam. I am a retired veteran of the CSFD with 25 years on the job I can see how the strategy of using "No comment" by the top brass can be frustrating for you and we all wonder about that. Why not just answer some questions? I think the issue of liability is probably the biggest hindrance to the cooperation of any elected or appointed official.
After all Colorado Springs is self insured, so having to cover the huge cost of just fighting the fire were big enough, adding the possibility of a very expensive legal judgment or multiple judgments causes silence. An outside agency could possibly place "blame" on the city or on the FD, so why risk it? That would not only lead to huge costs to the city and vis-à-vis the taxpayers, but could jeopardize the careers of some highly placed people. That exposure is just too great plain and simple.
As to the actions of the firefighters themselves I feel as if you want to play it both ways. You indentify the heroics of the men and women that fought this fire to the point of exhaustion and collapse, yet you still pick around the edges of incompetence, and dare I say in a snarly way. There is a touch of contempt in your wording and the way you select the quotes you use.
I know the vast majority of those men and women, hell I went through the recruit academy with Steve Riker in 1984 and let me tell you about those people. Even you noticed in your piece that when left in a void of leadership these people made decisive calls under enormous stress knowing that they were placing not only their colleagues at risk, but the population as well. I am sure you have put in hundreds of hours to research this story, to write, rewrite, edit, coalesce and massage it into shape.
But these men and women had seconds to react and did so with courage and sacrifice. The good old fallback position of Monday morning quarterbacking exercised by outside observers always seems to find much fault and a sparseness in the form of compliments. You haven’t even touched on the emotional damage these fine people suffered during the course of this event. Has it ever crossed your fact finding journalistic mind that what you do can be damaging to these people? Dredging it up, tearing at those scabs and pointing that finger, can reinjure people, so maybe consider that. Why would they talk to you when they can see the knife you hold behind your back?
You may have cause to judge the administration of the fire department or that of the city, but think of the line firefighter standing in that inferno risking their lives and know they did their best, they laid out their lives that night just like their hoses, so I would ask, that you poke away at those in charge if you need to, but by God leave out the firefighters, they couldn’t have given any more.
Posted by
Timothy O'Hara Casey
on 12/12/2012 at 10:30 AM
Re: “Life with a new lens”
So now you be able to accurately describe the size of the fish you catch. Too bad all good things must come to an end.
Posted by
Timothy O'Hara Casey
on 12/08/2012 at 9:58 AM
Re: “City's after action report ignores key questions about what went wrong in the Waldo fire”
Once again Pam nice reporting and now the big broom and dust pan come out and the sweeping begins.