Houston FD crash

Hey, have heard or seen any of the pictures coming from Houston about their vehicle collision? From the reports that they have put out upto this point sounds like someone called in smoke, possible house fire, and a ladder truck and an engine collided in an intersection. The pumper hit the side of the ladder truck causing it to overturn. The ladder landed on the front half of a car and also caught someone that was riding her bike on the sidewalk. The person in the car was able to remove herself from the vehicle and transported to the hospital. The person on the bike is still sedated with head injuries. The way it sounds, the person driving the ladder is at fault for running the red light. The call ended up being the Houston sewer department smoking the sewer line. So false alarm, no damage done? Wrong, that false alarm is going to cost a lot of money and manpower!!!
Lesson learned: If the light is red stop and clear the intersection prior to proceeding through. Also, be aware of other units responding to the same call!!

Click on the title to see news footage of the accident.

Chief's one on one meetings - status

Ok, I have been hearing different people wondering what has happened now that the Chief has sat down with everyone. Chief has compiled a list of everyones comments and sent them out to all the officers for them to look over. At the officers meeting, this list was look over and some discussion was held on it. ( I was not able to attend the officers meeting due to personal issues but did meet with the Chief the following week and we went over the topics of the meeting.) The officers are meeting again near the end of the month and they are to be looking over the list and highlighting several keys items to bring back to the next meeting. At the meeting, the highlighted issues will be brought forth and determine which items urgently need attention and come up with a course of action and a time frame to reevaluate to see if we are making progress. This will continue until we have gone through the list and address the issues. The list was 7 pages long so there are many issues that have to be addressed. So, with that being said, it is going to take time to get through everything.

If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or ideas, please either take them to the officer that has been assigned to you or the Chief. There is a new list of officer contacts for people to use. Some people stayed with their officer from last year, while others might have been moved.

Stay safe and keep up the good work!