Page 7 - The Wayne Dispatch

Glimmers of hope among

decimated fire department

By Carolyn Marnon the meals that have been provided to
COVID-19 has had numerous ef- them. If you would like to donate to
fects on the Wayne Fire Department. the fire department, Deputy Chief
The most notable ef- Schneider emphasizes that they can
fect is that 50% of the only accept store-bought or restau-
department’s staff is rant-bought food. Homemade food
out of commission items cannot be accepted. The de-
due to the virus. partment will gratefully accept gift
The remaining cards to grocery stores. Please call
staff has been spend- the station at 734-722-1111 to make
ing their days disin- arrangements for a good day to or-
fecting areas throughout the station ganize a meal donation.
as well as the equipment, wearing The pandemic is “is putting quite
masks 24 hours a day while at work a strain on the City of Wayne fire de-
and preparing for 911 calls that in- partment,” explained Deputy Chief
volve multiple layers of personal pro- Schneider. “Our call volumes have in-
tection equipment. creased. That adds to fatigue, stress
Even though there are only seven and more hours each individual fire
active working firefighters, the de- fighter is required to work due to the
partment has not changed how the shortage of fire fighters that are
shifts are organized, but it has cre- being quarantined.”
ated the need for overtime to replace Run times in answering a 911
the missing numbers. The Wayne de- call are affected greatly due to trans-
partment is utilizing their mutual aid portation times to hospitals outside
agreements with local communities, of Wayne and the decontamination
but they are not staffing the station process that follows each call. Res-
with any outside fire fighters. cue workers will begin decontaminat-
Has the community done any- ing with a rapid cleaning of the
thing special for the fire department? passenger compartment while they
There’s been “a tremendous amount are still at the hospital. As soon as
of donations which has been wonder- they return to the station, they deep
ful,” said Deputy Chief Jeremie clean the passenger compartment
Schneider. “The support has been along with themselves. It can take
great from the community and really anywhere from 1 ½ -2 hours to
from all of southeast Michigan. Dif- transport someone and put the res-
ferent organizations put together by cue vehicle back into service. Since
citizens that don’t reside in Wayne.” the COVID-19 pandemic, the depart-
Deputy Chief Schneider also men- ment was able to put a 2nd vehicle
tioned Little Caesars Pizza’s corpo- into service but now due to half the
rate office reached out to the staff in quarantine, the department
department, as well as Livonia, Can- has been unable to staff the 2nd ve-
ton and some downriver restaurants. hicle and is currently running one
The department appreciates all rescue and one fire engine.

The Wayne Dispatch · May 2020 · 7