Alerter blog

Month: November 2007

  • The floods that never were…

    Incident No.
    Date:     9th November 2007
    Time: 0516
    Type: Threat of flooding
    Address: Lowestoft and surrounding area
    Initial Attendance:
    Five pumps – Normanhurst 01, 02 and 05, Wrentham and Bury 02, 2 x Unimogs, Water rescue teams from Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Chesire, RNLI

    The build up in the news last night made it inevitable that we would get some sort of involvement in the greatest flood since 1953.

    Fortunately the wind changed direction in the early hours and the worst was thankfully avoided.

    It was good to see that Suffolk had called in water rescue capability from far and wide, along with our own teams and additional retained crews.

    Normanshurst fire station became the northern base for many of the teams with our drill yard turned into a packed parking space for all the arriving teams and their equipment.

    After a few false starts a couple of teams were mobilised but not to anything too serious.

    At around 1130 we were all stood down. Initially we were expecting to be required for up to 48 hours!

    A big thank you must go to Lil and her catering staff for providing bacon butties, sandwiches and copious drinks for the assembled hoards!

    Today the North Sea let us off lightly – I didn't even get my feet wet… She may not be so forgiving the next time.

  • Sad times…

    It’s been ages since I posted any news. Things have been very quiet and other events have made this a time for reflection.

    A week has now passed since four of our colleagues lost their lives tackling a fire in Atherstone-on-Stour. The full story of what actually happened is still to emerge.

    Our thoughts and deepest sympathies are, of course, with the family, friends and fellow firefighters of these four guys who have died doing a job they loved.

    And this brings me on to thinking a bit more deeply about what we do, whether wholetime or retained firefighters.
    We are part of a large ‘boys’ club. We have great laughs and work as one team. We very often don’t give a thought to what might be.

    What happened last week could so easily happen anywhere at anytime. The most routine of incidents can develop rapidly into a dangerous situation, resulting in serious injury, or, heaven forbid, loss of life.

    We try to minimise the danger but the very nature of what we do means that a fine line is often trod.

    We mustn’t dwell on these events or else we might as well jack it all in. The events of last Friday are, thankfully, few and far between. But it does bring home how fragile life is and that we should appreciate all that we have.

    God bless guys.