First in, first out

The Philly firefighter who blogs as "First In" has a splendid little post (click the post title to go there) about the 'Engine 14 and Ladder 15' firehouse in the Frankford section of Philadelphia. Even if you don't care about firefighters (and you should; one might save your life some day), it's worth reading:

Take a look at this picture. What you are looking at is a typical Philadelphia Fire Department “Double House.” It has an engine and a ladder company housed together. The Engines carry the hose and pump the water. The Ladders carry the big main ladders and all of the other assorted tools we need to deal with whatever emergency we are called on to respond to.
The Mayor’s plan calls for the closing of Engine 14. But Engine 14’s area of operations, known as a 'local', won’t shrink or go away. Other Engine companies will have to try and cover their local.
That means while the station will remain open and Ladder 15 will still be there, there will be no Engine there to pump water. There will be four less firemen on duty each shift. When a fire or other incident breaks out, another Engine will have to come from further away. When Ladder 15 arrives at the scene of a house fire in the middle of the night and people stand on the sidewalk screaming that people are trapped, they will have no water to put the fire out with. Now if the next company who is supposed to be coming is out on a call (what are the odds of that in a city of 1.5 million 911 abusers?) the wait for another Engine just got longer and the fire just got bigger.
What do you think the odds are that one of the firemen standing on that sidewalk is going to risk his life trying to save that person trapped inside… and get killed or injured in the process? What are the odds that the person who was trapped doesn’t make it, either? I’d say the odds are sky high. It’s a lead pipe cinch.
When a city has a four billion dollar budget and can’t finance police and fire protection adequately, keep libraries and swimming pools open, and otherwise fund the essential services we need, why are we paying taxes in the first place? When the Federal Government has unlimited billions to bail out companies who horrendously mismanaged their assets and made criminally, unethically unsound business practices aided by an inept and complicit Congress, why should they get one red cent of taxpayer dollars?
When we have to stand on a sidewalk watching a house burn, who gets the blame?