Firefighters become storm warriors
The station has several heavy rescue trucks that hold a multitude of specialized equipment, including structural collapse gear such as structure stabilizers and cameras that were used to search houses damaged in the tornadoes last April 27.
BY ANNA DURRETT / REPORTER
Fire Station number 1 of the Madison City Fire Department is not an average station. “We have Alabama Heavy Rescue One, which is a rescue team that can be deployed anywhere throughout the state,” said Captain Stacy Haraway.
The station has several heavy rescue trucks that hold a multitude of specialized equipment, including structural collapse gear such as structure stabilizers and cameras that were used to search houses damaged in the tornadoes last April 27.
“Sometimes you get a building that’s damaged and not it’s safe to go in it,” said Haraway. “We can stabilize the building to make it safe to search.” Haraway said they also have “cameras on long polls we can run in down into a collapsed building and look around for victims.”
The department received funding to start its heavy rescue program from the Department of Homeland Security after Hurricane Katrina. There were nine heavy rescue teams in Alabama, but now there are only three that have been consistently able to collect enough funding to remain operational.
Haraway said that on April 27 of last year, “pretty much everybody was called in” to the fire station.
“It was a day you knew the tornadoes were coming,” Haraway said. He was sent with some of his fellow firefighters to Cullman that morning. Later in the day other Madison firefighters went to assist the Harvest area.
While the heavy recue team was searching through damaged houses and clearing roads of trees in areas hit hard by the storm, the firefighters in Madison responded to down power lines and trees. Huntsville emergency Medical Services Inc. covered many medical calls the fire department would normally take so the firefighters could stay open to respond to possible forthcoming severe damage.
One group driving a fire truck on U.S. Highway 72 in Madison almost had an accident themselves that evening.
“When we ran a call for a power line down, a tornado about flipped the truck over on 72,” said firefighter Chris Mankin. “We could see it coming and we tried to get away from it.” Mankin said they felt the front end of the truck slide. “We ended up going in the Lowe’s parking lot and running in the building before we all got blown away,” Mankin said. The tornado “was just quick and gone.”
“We’ve realized structural collapse is going to be our big thing because we’re going to see more tornadoes than anything come though North Alabama,” said Haraway. “We’ve spent a lot of time in the last year on our structural collapse training.”
If you have not registered your storm shelter with the fire department, call them at 256-772-3326.
