Houston Fire Chief Defends Keeping Thousands of Firefighters Off Duty During Harvey
Following a barrage of criticism lobbed at the Houston Fire Department over its response to Hurricane Harvey, Chief Samuel Peña explained in detail to the Houston Press Monday morning why he did not recall all or even most firefighters to duty as Harvey inundated the city.
Ahead of Harvey, just one-quarter of HFD’s force was officially slated for duty — with several overtime crews staffing the department's single high-water rescue boat and three of its six rescue boats (regular staff filled the other three boats). On the afternoon of Sunday, August 27, an email from an HFD administrative employee had gone out asking that all firefighters who weren’t scheduled to work — which was approximately 3,000 of them — “refrain from coming into the station” unless they were specifically asked to report. It had gone out hours after Harris County Judge Ed Emmett asked civilians who own boats to assist with rescues, and after Mayor Sylvester Turner asked all essential city employees to report to duty.
Many of the 3,000 other off-duty firefighters, the firefighters union and HFD have said, got in the water anyway, hopping on private civilian craft or boats of their own to assist in the rescue efforts — in fact, Executive Assistant Fire Chief Richard Mann, who also attended the interview, said he anticipates that every one of them did this.
So why weren’t they officially called in?
According to Chief Peña, it was a matter of resources — of physical equipment in the department’s arsenal.
Read more: http://www.houstonpress.com/news/why-hfd-chief-pena-did-not-call-more-firefighters-in-for-duty-during-harvey-9802633
