Brotherhood fighting for a comeback!

I've been thinking a lot lately about what a few members of the Department have been discussing lately about trying to bring the brotherhood back into the Department... It's not completely gone, three of the four stations work together and now even a few members of the fourth are realizing that being number one isn't at a single location; it's about being one unified Department. It's been a long time since this Department was able to work together harmoniously off a fire scene and I'm loving the direction we are going right now, so my question is "How do you bring brotherhood back into a Department after it's been gone for so many years?"

I read an article I found on firehouse.com recently that I would love to share with you especially two of the paragraphs. The title of the article is called "What is our Brotherhood?" and it is written by Dr. Harry R. Carter who is an amazing staff writer for firehouse.com

He wrote about brotherhood: "You cannot turn it on and off, or share with some folks and not others. You are either a part of the Brotherhood, or an imposter dressing in firefighting garb. The all-encompassing nature of Brotherhood is one aspect of being a part of the fire service that seems to be increasingly overlooked by the members of our service.

Trust me when I say that this is a battle and it is not always a young against the old sort of conflict. It is about a lack of respect for the proud traditions that have carried us this far. It is about a respect for people, past and present, living and dead. Any time that I witness or experience some place where there is an absence of respect, I feel that I am experiencing an environment totally devoid of any spirit of Brotherhood."

My favorite part of this is the second paragraph where he writes that the lack of brotherhood is from a lack of respect for people, past and present, living and dead; and how it's also about a lack of tradition. This is so true in our Department and I pray that it changes soon and people see that tradition needs to continue the way it currently has and learn how to work together as a Department and come up with ideas the whole Department is on board with. Not just change things because one small group feels it's time for change, but because the whole Department feels it's time for change. We all are adults working to do the same job in the same community and it's important for us to work together as a brotherhood on and off the fire scene; to better serve the community and ourselves. Brotherhood is a tradition that is lost and is fighting it's way back into our Department.

Crisis Averted!

I'm so glad the Lord heard my prayers and didn't create mass devastation to our City. We did some minor pumping of a few river front homes and business on Saturday evening but nothing major to write home about. I honestly feel bad for those people sometimes... they live and work on a River that for the most part was what used to be a 50 year flood producer that has become an almost every year occurrence for the past 5 years. It's getting ridiculous.

Rain Rain Go Away!

So yet another storm is expected to hit us tonight (Wednesday) and continue into Friday morning. If the river wasn't high enough as it is, we are expected to add another 3 to 4 inches of rain to that. I'm already getting OEM updates and have prepared our pumps for the impending doom. But more stressful than that... Our 29th Annual Lenten Fish Fry starts this Friday, so now I get to try and become GOD for a day and split my manpower. If I could only clone people to be in two places at once. It's sure going to be an interesting few days of evacuations, Pumping and Cooking Fish! LOL I will keep you posted on the may lay.
Delaware River please recede faster so that you can consume the impending doom and save the residences of Lambertville from having to pull their belongs from their homes again and save my father from pulling multiple boilers on the river again.
Here's for hoping a miracle happens.