Yesterday I wrote a short piece about the aging infrastructure of our cities, and posted the events of last week in Rochester where an aging fire protection water supply system caused some flooding.
Here is some of what I have found about the Holly Fire Protection and Water System. More at the links.
ASME International
Concerned about the [...]

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Rochester N.Y. city firefighters are at the scene of a 4 alarm fire on the city’s northeast side this afternoon. Heavy smoke covers the area as a paper and cardboard recycling plant complex burns. The fire is at at J C Fibers, 315 Hollenbeck Street.
Many suburban fire companies have been brought to fill in city [...]

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Please see my commentary after the story.
R News
Earlier this month, authorities on the west side of Monroe County arrested and charged a total of four men with sexual misconduct involving girls in The Youth Explorer Program. Youth leaders in posts met Wednesday night at RIT for a refresher course in common sense.
“It’s just basic common [...]

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Frame structure, flat roof, heavy facade in front, heavy fire load. A very dangerous fire.
CBS
Fire swept through a furniture warehouse, collapsing the building’s roof and claiming the lives of nine firefighters in a disaster the mayor described Tuesday as “difficult to fathom or quantify.”
“Nine brave, heroic, courageous firefighters of the city of Charleston have [...]

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Marine Corps Times
The Purple Heart on Kent Padmore’s chest isn’t for the shrapnel from an enemy rocket-propelled grenade that tore a cheek-to-cheek gash across his face. That wound was never documented; Padmore fixed it himself with a liquid suture in the rearview mirror of his Humvee.
Padmore, a Marine reservist, works in civilian life as a [...]

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NY Post
February 23, 2007 — They served their country in war, and now they will serve the city.
Meet the newest members of the Fire Department - 23 firefighters who served in the military graduated from the Fire Academy yesterday.
That’s the highest number of veterans for any class in FDNY history.
Mayor Bloomberg, who presided over [...]

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I’m at the base for some hours, trying to volunteer during my period of extended “looking for opportunities”.
A recent call got me thinking about EMS as it relates to, well, call it engineering. The art and science of moving patients to and from the ambulance.
As a basic level EMT, I don’t have a lot of [...]

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R News
A freight train derailed Tuesday night at Lincoln Road and Maple Avenue in the village of East Rochester.
Early reports indicate there are no injuries. Eight to ten cars are off the tracks. There’s no word on what caused the train to derail.
Authorities tell R News the derailment happened on the south side of the [...]

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One of the top killers of Soldiers in Iraq isn’t necessarily combat-related.

Since operations began in March of 2003, many Soldiers have been killed when they can’t escape a Humvee – often because it has rolled into one of Iraq’s numerous irrigation canals.

When an armored truck is upside-down or on its side, it can take three Soldiers to push a door open enough to get out, and if the doors are sunken into the mud, it can be nearly impossible.

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Democrat & Chronicle
(November 19, 2006) — East Rochester firefighters rescued a woman from a second-floor apartment today after fire broke out in a downstairs kitchen.
Firefighters responded at 12:03 p.m. to 411 W. Hickory St., East Rochester. When they arrived, the woman, who was in her mid-30s, was leaning out her apartment window. Fire crews placed [...]

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