This evening there are two separate stories questioning the readiness of the DC Fire & EMS Department. In the story above, WTTG-TV/Fox 5 reporter Paul Wagner, who has broken most of the stories about the poor state of the fire department’s fleet, tells us that two reserve ladder trucks recently failed aerial ladder inspections. You may recall Wagner’s previous report that the department did not conduct ladder inspections last year. Chief Kenneth Ellerbe told Wagner in a statement then that the inspections weren’t done because of a lack of reserve trucks. Now that those inspections are happening, Wagner reports problems are being discovered, including the damaged cable seen below.
At WTOP radio this afternoon, the city’s former director of D.C.’s Emergency Management and Homeland Security, Pete LaPorte, was interviewed about Washington’s ability to respond to an attack like the one yesterday in Boston. LaPorte was asked about the impact of the fire department’s fleet problems on the City’s readiness. Here’s LaPorte’s response:
I think there is a lot of mutual aid but I think it’s a true concern. I believe that the city has a great deal of reserve money right now. and I truly believe it would be a wise investment to reinvest in our fire equipment and resources. You remember after 9/11 there wasn’t a dollar that … couldn’t be had for our response. We literally got all new fire trucks, all new ambulances, throughout the city. It seems like we’ve lost some of that level of response and we certainly need to upgrade it. And I think that would be something that Chief Ellerbe wants to be looking at quickly, is to make a request. To look for a capital investment in the equipment there.
There are new concerns the D.C. fire department is taking risks with its ladder trucks after two of them failed stress tests this month and were taken out of service.
One of the trucks had frayed steel cables used to raise the ladders into the air.
According to the firefighters’ union, that truck, a reserve that has been responding to emergency calls on Capitol Hill, failed a stress test Monday morning and was immediately taken out of service.
It is a discovery that raises questions about the safety of the entire fleet.
“Absolutely, and unfortunately, I don’t believe it’s the only truck running calls that probably wouldn’t pass an aerial ladder test,” said Union Second Vice President Dabney Hudson. “It’s going to continue to put the citizens and the firefighters who ride it in jeopardy.”
When FOX 5 first aired the union’s concerns on March 18, a spokesman for the fire department said the stress tests had not been done in 2012 because there were no reserves to take their place.
Then two days later, fire officials told the city council the tests had not been done since 2008.
“If the cables snapped, it would have caused a catastrophic ladder failure, the ladder would completely fail … it would have come crashing to the ground,” said Hudson.
The truck with the frayed cables was running calls on the hill because the truck normally assigned to the hill, Truck 7, has been out of service, parked at fleet maintenance on Half Street since early April.
The new reserve taking its place in the firehouse on 8th Street in Southeast D.C. has issues as well.
Photos obtained by FOX 5 show rust and corrosion on the base of the aerial ladder. It is a condition the union feels would likely lead to a failed stress test as well.
Last year, an aerial ladder in Alliquppa, Pa., collapsed while fighting a blaze at an auto repair shop and seriously injuring a firefighter.
As of March 20, the fire department reported to the city council’s judiciary committee it had 16 trucks and one reserve ladder.
In an email sent to FOX 5 Monday night, Fire Chief Kenneth Ellerbe confirmed one front line truck and two reserves have been given stress tests since early April, with only the front line truck passing.
The chief said the reserves will be repaired in about two weeks.
On Tuesday, the chief declined an interview request.
Alvin Bethea’s testimony in front of the DC City Council on Thursday was overshadowed by the almost three hours of questioning of Chief Kenneth Ellerbe and Deputy Mayor Paul Quander. Other than one mention in an article, I don’t believe Bethea made news, despite the rather outspoken nature of his testimony and an interesting link to an EMS response from 18-years-ago that shows progress made by the department.
At the beginning of his appearance before the Committee on the Judiciary and Public safety, Alvin Bethea had nice things to say about Chief Kenneth Ellerbe and the department’s response to two EMS calls he was personally familiar with. One of those calls involved the stabbing death of Bethea’s son a little more than a year ago.
What is probably worth noting in the praise about that response is that Bethea’s son, Deoni Jones, aka JaParker, is described in news articles as a transgender woman. In 1995, a long and ugly chapter in the department’s history was opened after allegations surfaced over poor care and derogatory remarks made when the DC Fire and EMS Department responded to a car crash that took the life of Tyra Hunter, a transsexual. Hunter’s mother successfully sued the City.
But Alvin Bethea then switched gears in his testimony. That’s where the clip above posted to YouTube begins. Bethea talks about attacks on Chief Ellerbe as being “the work of the devil”. He testifies that firefighters are bringing the city “grief” and “intentionally breaking and destroying ambulances and fire trucks and medical equipment”. Bethea likens the firefighters to “home grown terrorists”.
To see the entire hearing and all of what Alvin Bethea had to say, click here (Bethea’s testimony begins at 3:04).
A day after DC Fire & EMS Department Chief Kenneth Ellerbe apologized for giving the wrong information to the DC City Council about it’s reserve fleet, Paul Wagner first reported this that Ellerbe and Deputy Mayor Paul Quander have done it again. According to Wagner’s report this morning on WTTG-TV/Fox 5 (above), at the same time the pair told the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety that there were four fully stocked and ready to go reserve ambulances at the apparatus maintenance shop, Ambulance 16 found something completely different. Check out Paul’s evening report in the video above and the story below:
There is new information in the ongoing troubles inside the D.C. Fire and EMS department. FOX 5 has obtained a document and a picture that shows the department’s reserve fleet of ambulances is not what leaders claim it to be.
D.C.’s fire chief told the D.C. Council Thursday his department is in an “acceptable state of readiness for major events” while the deputy mayor for public safety said the department is prepared if ambulances break down.
The deputy mayor repeatedly told the council the department has four ambulances held in reserve and said they had been in place since just after March 5 when an injured D.C. police officer waited 20 minutes for an ambulance.
But according to an internal document obtained by FOX 5, not one fully-stocked reserve was ready Thursday when a crew needed one.
Approximately three hours before Paul Quander sat down to testify before the city council, the crew of Ambulance 16 went to the fleet maintenance shop in Southwest D.C. where they were told to get into reserve Ambulance 627.
According to the internal document, the crew told a supervisor, “This unit was not fully stocked and one compartment appeared to be used as a trash can … there was oxygen however it was low and needed to be replaced. The unit had less than a half a tank of fuel and the cot had a pile of equipment thrown on top of it.”
The document says the crew got in the rig, but “It seemed to be in worse shape (than) the one we had just switched out of.”
As the crew waited for another reserve, Quander was repeatedly claiming the department had four ambulances ready to go.
“A minimum of four ambulances are kept stocked and available at FEMS fleet maintenance for ambulances that go out of service for more than 30 minutes due to mechanical problems,” he said. “Those units are fully available, they’re stocked.”
Later in the hearing at the Wilson Building, Quander said it again.
“We have placed four ambulances that are there ready to go,” said Quander. “All we have to do is turn the key and bring some equipment, the bag and the laptop.”
But the crew of Ambulance 16 did not get a working reserve until 3:30 p.m.
The third they were told to get into that day.
During Thursday’s hearing, the chief told the council the department has 111 ambulances. 39 are in service, 46 are out of service and 19 are in reserve.
The department is currently conducting an audit of the fleet after FOX 5 revealed the numbers the department was claiming were false.
The chief admitted Thursday he had been managing the department for about a year with numbers that did not add up. It is an admission Councilmember Tommy Wells seized upon, calling it an “incredibly serious issue.”
“Management is absolutely accountable for the problems of this agency, and it goes back to making sure they have the equipment they need to do their jobs,” said council member Tommy Wells, Ward 6 Democrat and chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety that held Thursday’s hearing.
During several sharp exchanges, department leadership rebuffed characterizations that the issues were widespread, with Mr. Quander laying out plans to address what he referred to as the “isolated” incidents, and the chief adding that he believes the “department’s fleet remains in an acceptable state of readiness for potential major events in the city.”
“Rarely is it about one person. It is about a system and the lack of quality control,” Mr. Mendelson said, later appearing incredulous that the chief had such inaccurate information about the condition of his fleet.
D.C. Fire Chief Kenneth Ellerbe acknowledged on Thursday that he led his agency for about a year using faulty data about the state of its fleet, and he apologized for repeated ambulance shortages that left the ill, injured and dying waiting for help.
“We were operating with an outdated list,” said Ellerbe, who told lawmakers that current statistics show that nearly half of the District’s 111 ambulances are out of service. “It was inaccurate for approximately a year.”
D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson was incredulous.
“I just don’t understand how the chief of the fire and EMS department would not know how many vehicles are available,” Mendelson said as lawmakers continued to absorb a scathing report from the D.C. inspector general that said the department’s fleet was unprepared for a catastrophic emergency.
The chair of D.C. City Council’s public safety committee grilled the fire chief for 2 1/2 hours on Friday during a contentious hearing on whether slow response times and maintenance failures are endangering the lives of sick and injured residents.
Deputy Mayor for public safety Paul A Quander Jr., who sat beside Ellerbe, said the chief needs to move forward with plans to revamp schedules and deployment to keep up with a changing city.
He said the fire service is no longer a “fire department that sometimes handles medical calls, but instead it is a mobile medical hospital agency that occasionally handles fires.”
Nearly half of the ambulances serving the District of Columbia are out of service, an apologetic D.C. Fire Chief Ken Ellerbe testified Thursday before members of the D.C. Council.
Ellerbe, who has faced multiple calls for his resignation in the midst of numerous issues facing the city’s fire and EMS response capabilities, said that the equipment problems his department faces are due to them “holding on to things” for too long.
The chief told members of the D.C. Council that just 58 of the District’s 111 ambulances are currently in service.
For Ellerbe, Thursday’s hearing was an uncomfortable grilling. But for Durand Ford, Jr., it was like ripping the scab off a wound.
His father, Durand Ford, Sr., died from a heart attack on New Year’s Day while waiting for an ambulance. Ford’s death was one of three incidents under the microscope during Thursday’s testimony on slow response times.
At issue is whether the three problems in the last three months are because of a systemic breakdown or if, as Chief Ellerbe and Deputy Mayor Paul Quander contend, unfortunate outliers.
“The events of New Year’s Day are atypical, hopefully never happen again,” Quander says.
More than 100 firefighters called out sick on New Year’s Eve. But the subsequent two incidents involving an MPD motorcycle officer and a stroke patient being transported in the cab of a fire truck are being blamed on an aging fleet and a lack of paramedics.
“Sometimes it takes an incident to realize there are these issues,” Ellerbe says.
Ford, however, calls these problems just an opportunity to punt the blame.
The department came under even more intense scrutiny on March 5 after a Metropolitan Police Department officer had to wait nearly 20 minute for a mutual aide Prince George’s County ambulance to tend to him on after he was injured in a hit-and-run in Southeast.
A recently-released city report indicated that three D.C. ambulances were improperly out of service that night, forcing the need for a Maryland-based unit to respond. The officer finally made it to an area hospital nearly an hour after he was hit.
Seven city employees were disciplined for the inadequate response.
Ellerbe also said that the department had been operating under an incorrect inventory list for about a year.
In response, though, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson told Ellerbe that the issues were a “management problem” and that he needs to find a staff that can get their jobs done more effectively.
In a statement released Thursday, Ed Smith, the president of the D.C. Fire Union Local 36, said that the D.C. Fire & EMS Department is living on “borrowed time.”
“Nothing proves Chief Ellerbe’s negligence more than the state of the fleet of reserve ambulances and fire trucks that is supposed to be at the ready at all times,” Smith said. “The fleet is virtually non-existent and has been a key factor in recent well-publicized EMS failures.”
Ellerbe overwhelmingly received a vote of no confidence from the fire union on Monday. Immediately after the 300-37 vote, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray and Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Paul Quander threw their support behind Ellerbe.
“Despite the ‘no confidence’ vote tallied by the local firefighters union, I am very optimistic about the department’s future and encouraged by the service we provide to District residents and visitors,” Ellerbe said in a statement after the vote.
His department also faced scrutiny over claims of sexual harassment in February. Numerous cadets told ABC7′s Jay Korff that two training academy instructors repeatedly harassed them.
Only 58 of the District’s 111 ambulances are currently in service, D.C. Fire Chief Kenneth Ellerbe testified before a city council committee Thursday.
Ellerbe added that the District only has 245 paramedics, well short of its target of 300. Even that number is less impressive than it appears since Ellerbe disclosed that not all paramedics do field work or receive calls.
The failure to provide an ambulance to a police officer injured in a hit-and-run and two other incidents — including the death of a man who died while waiting for an ambulance — have raised questions about whether the department has enough resources to handle the emergency call volume in the fast-growing city.
Those three incidents, all within 90 days of each other, prompted the hearing, said D.C. Councilmember Tommy Wells.
Ellerbe apologized during Thursday’s testimony. “I’d like to offer my sincere apology to the families,” he said. “I’m deeply troubled … I accept responsibility.”
The chief also apologized for misinformation on the department’s inventory of vehicles, saying that the department had faulty inventory records for a year.
An internal investigation had blamed individual employees for the slow ambulance response — but the District’s inspector general has also found a lack of adequate reserve vehicles, both ambulances and fire trucks. At any given time, only 39 ambulances are active in the District.
Ellerbe told the Council committee Thursday that although “the audit is still ongoing,” he promised to overhaul the way their fleet is managed by bringing in a “fleet consultant.”
Due to current shortages, Advance Life Support ambulances are routinely downgraded due to a lack of paramedics on duty, Ellerbe said, adding “The problem is not fixed.” A final assessment of the inventory of D.C. Fire/EMS is still 30 days from completion.
Ellerbe’s testimony comes three days after the city firefighters’ union overwhelmingly approved a resolution expressing no confidence in his leadership. When asked following his testimony whether he could guarantee no more ambulance delays in the District. Ellerbe told News4′s Mark Segraves that he could not.
D.C. Deputy Mayor Paul Quander testified Thursday that Ellerbe has “worked tirelessly.” However, Wells did not seem convinced by the testimoney, telling reporters following the hearing that he was “not satisfied” with Ellerbe’s responses, “deeply concerned with the dwindling number of paramedics,” and convinced there is a “systemic” problem with D.C. Fire and EMS management.
There has been a good deal of build up to today’s DC City Council hearing on the state of EMS in the Nation’s Capital. It is scheduled to start at 11:30 AM EDT and you can watch it here. There are a lot of expectations that the hearing could bring some clarity to the issues after the dozens of stories over the past few weeks. My experience tells me maybe or maybe not.
Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety Chairman Tommy Wells has made it known he has been dissatisfied with the answers so far. Whether all of this finally makes sense will depend on how to-the-point the questions are from Wells and how willing Chief Kenneth Ellerbe and the administration of Mayor Vince Gray are to opening up on the issues of the last two years.
Above is Part 1 of the April 1, 2009 hearing. Click for Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.
All you have to do is recall one of the most bizarre City Council hearings involving the DC Fire & EMS Department over the last 30 years to understand how unclear everything can still be after one of these public events. That was the one that had Chief Dennis Rubin on the hot seat over the Fenty administration’s give-away of a fire engine and ambulance to the town of Sosua in the Dominican Republic (see videos above). It took an IG report to finally get some real answers in that case (click here to read the report & see related articles). But the topic of today’s hearing is much more important than those shenanigans.
Suderman makes the case that other administration officials have been asked to leave based on a lot less than the record amassed by Chief Ellerbe. Suderman reviews that record in the column.
Last week, the latest department head to get the boot was Harold Pettigrew, who senior Gray administration officials say was fired for not moving fast enough to reform the Department of Small and Local Business Development.
But Gray’s tolerance for controversy or alleged ineptitude isn’t always so slight; he’ll stick with some department heads no matter how much heat they generate. Consider Fire Chief Ken Ellerbe, whose two-year tenure has been marked by steady controversies and who is likely to be the subject of intense questioning by the D.C. Council on Thursday.
Early on, Ellerbe pledged to be a “transformational” leader who would bring together a fractured fire department, improve relations with the firefighters union, and be a better community partner. But up until now, Ellerbe has made headlines for all the wrong reasons.
Suderman’s article also looks at a transistion document sent to Chief Ellerbe by Chief Rubin.
Other pre-hearing stories include the video at the top of this post by Paul Wagner. He interviews Marcus Rosenbaum who is scheduled to testify today. Also scheduled to testify is Durand Ford Jr. who was interviewed by April Burbank of the Washington Examiner. Both men had relatives who were the patients in a pair of high profile EMS cases.
Apologies for the late post, I have been traveling. Here’s coverage of Monday’s vote of no confidence in the leadership of embattled DC Fire & EMS Department Chief Kenneth Ellerbe. The vote was 300 to 37. The last vote of no confidence by IAFF Local 36 was in 2001 against Chief Ronnie Few. Chief Few resigned in 2002 after news reports revealed discrepancies in the resumes of Few and other top officials he recruited for the department.
Union President Edward C. Smith said Ellerbe’s management “places our members and the public needlessly in harm’s way.”
Ellerbe declined to be interviewed, but he issued a statement saying he is “very optimistic about the department’s future and encouraged by the service we provide to District residents and visitors.” The chief, a native of the District who came here from Sarasota, Fla., in 2011, added, “I am deeply committed to resolving the issues before us.” He previously said the department has reached the “tipping point” in regard to slow response times.
Councilman Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), the public safety committee chairman, said he will demand on Thursday that Ellerbe explain how his staff submitted information for a Feb. 20 oversight hearing showing the department had an adequate reserve fleet when officials there had been given the inspector general’s report one day earlier.
“Did they purposely provide false information to the council, or were they operating under false information?” said Wells, who is considering running for mayor.
“Fire Chief Ellerbe now has a two-year record that has resulted in a failed approach to leadership that has needlessly endangered the public through excessive delays in response due to staffing and fleet mismanagement, and dangerous situations for the firefighters who are sworn to protect the citizens and visitors of our city,” union officials said in a statement issued Monday after the vote.
“It’s a sad day when we have to use that as a recourse to let the public know they’re in harm’s way,” union President Edward Smith said.
Paul A. Quander Jr., the city’s deputy mayor for public safety and justice, also issued a statement Monday afternoon saying the chief has his support in ongoing efforts to “modernize and move the agency forward.”
Hundreds of D.C. firefighters packed a Northeast D.C. union hall Monday morning where they voted “no confidence” in Fire Chief Kenneth Ellerbe.
It was a vote that went overwhelmingly against the chief.
Union leaders say Ellerbe is putting public safety at risk with a depleted staff of paramedics and a shabby fleet of vehicles while the chief’s defenders say it’s all about an unpopular shift change.
337 firefighters cast secret ballots Monday. Only 37 voted they still had confidence in Chief Ellerbe.
It is a vote that came 12 years after the last “no confidence” vote and three days after an inspector general’s report questioned whether the department could respond to a mass casualty incident.
Things got a bit testy outside the union hall on Bladensburg Road, NE, where firefighters casting ballots came face-to-face with Ellerbe supporters.
The 300 who voted “no confidence” in the chief discussed the issue in the union hall before folding their votes and slipping them into the ballot box as they left the building.
Ellerbe’s trouble with the union and its membership began soon after he proposed doing away with the platoon system where firefighters work 24 hours on and 72 hours off.
Instead the chief wants to go to 12-hour shifts to better handle a high volume of medical calls.
But the union says it’s more than that.
“If we don’t have the right staffing and the right tools and the right training, we can’t be the best department in the country,” said Union President Ed Smith.
The firefighters’ vote comes on the heels of embarrassing stories in which an injured D.C. police officer waited 20 minutes for an ambulance while a stroke victim was transported to the hospital in a fire engine.
The union says attrition has left well over a hundred jobs unfilled while the inspector general found the department’s fleet of vehicles and its repairs a dysfunctional mess.
But Chief Ellerbe’s supporters say the trouble comes from firefighters resistant to change.
“Chief Ellerbe sees for the future we need to be working shorter shifts, more intervals and that doesn’t comply with a lot of people who live far away from here,” said firefighter Garry Wiggins.
Retired firefighter Nathan Queen added, “I think the chief is a good manager. He was called here to manage and that’s what he is doing. Are there those that don’t want to change? Yes, and that’s why they are having this vote of no confidence against the chief because their biggest issue, Local 36’s biggest issue is the shift change.”
In a statement, Chief Ellerbe responded to the vote by saying:
“I am very optimistic about the department’s future and encouraged by the service we provide to District residents and visitors. I remain deeply committed to resolving the issues before us. I look forward to strengthening our capabilities and putting our resources to better use in order to uphold the confidence of those we serve every day.”
Union President Ed Smith says he plans to lay it all out on the table this Thursday when Councilmember Tommy Wells holds a special hearing on D.C. Fire and EMS and the condition of the fire department’s fleet of vehicles.
By the way, the no confidence vote will not force any action. Instead, it’s just a way for the firefighters to show their confidence, or in this case, their lack of confidence in their chief.
“Chief Ellerbe is ethically bankrupt; and his poor managerial practices places our members and the public needlessly in harm’s way,” according to a statement released by Ed Smith, president D.C. Fire Fighters Association Local 36. The statement goes on to say that Chief Ellerbe “has needlessly endangered the public through excessive delays in response due to staffing and fleet mismanagement, and dangerous situations for the fire fighters who are sworn to protect the citizens and visitors of our city.”
D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray has backed Ellerbe with support despite the scrutiny the department has faced over the last few months.
A report by the D.C. Inspector General’s Office earlier this month said the department’s ambulance fleet had dangerous gaps in coverage and a “dangerously high and unaddressed attrition rate of paramedics that threatens the lives of D.C. residents everyday who are in medical distress.”
District of Columbia Mayor Vincent Gray is standing behind fire chief Kenneth Ellerbe following a no-confidence vote by the city firefighters’ union.
Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Paul Quander said in a statement Monday that he continues to support Ellerbe’s efforts to modernize the department. He’s calling on firefighters to work with the chief to accomplish that goal.
Councilman Tommy Wells told ABC7 this latest problem is undermining his confidence in the department’s ability to respond to any crisis that requires additional resources.
“We just had a shooting of 13 people. If that had been 13 casualties, 13 folks that were life threatening, I’m not confident that we would have had the ability to respond,” Wells said.
Members of the Progressive Black Firefighters Organization, who held signs supporting the chief after the vote, say the main reason the union’s against Ellerbe is his plan to change scheduling.
On Feb. 19, Ellerbe received an initial management alert report from the Office of the Inspector General saying that “many vehicles designated as reserve vehicles were out-of-service and could not be used if needed as frontline replacement vehicles in neighborhood fire stations, or for large-scale emergencies or mass casualty events.”
A day later, Ellerbe testified before the Council’s public safety committee and made no mention that the information about the reserve fleet he submitted may have been inaccurate.
On March 13, Fox 5′s Paul Wagner reported on allegations made by the fire fighters union that the department was improperly counting fire trucks that had been sold or been out of service for years as part of the department’s reserve fleet. Right after the story aired, Ellerbe put out a statement saying the union was right and thanking it for “bringing this inaccurate information to our attention.”
Council member Tommy Wells, whose committee received the bad information, told Suderman he is going to give Chief Ellerbe a chance to explain the timeline but said it “does not look good”. No response from the chief on this issue.
But the inspector general’s report, which highlights some of the same deficiencies in the reserve fleet, was delivered to the fire chief the day before the hearing. It was released to the public on Friday.
“It certainly undermines my confidence in the management of the fire department,” said Councilmember Tommy Wells, who chairs the council’s public safety committee and presided over the hearing. “If they used the information that they provided me that said the reserve trucks are available when they’re not even in the District of Columbia and we don’t even own them anymore, then that tells me there’s a massive breakdown of administrative competence.”
Ellerbe said in a statement that he was already implementing the report’s recommendations and that the department was in the process of purchasing new vehicles, including ladder trucks and ambulances.
A new report by the D.C. inspector general is painting a dim picture of the readiness of the D.C. fire department and questions whether it can answer the call in a mass casualty incident.
The report found major deficiencies in the reserve fleet of trucks, pumpers and transports, and describes a dysfunctional operation.
This report, which was given to Chief Kenneth Ellerbe on February 19, the day before he appeared in front the D.C. City Council, says the department had not come close to meeting its own emergency plans and many of the vehicles designated as reserves were listed as out of service.
The report slams the condition of the fleet and questions the quality of the repairs it receives.
The investigation into the fleet and its maintenance began in January of last year when an inspector took a look inside a warehouse on Gallatin Street in Northwest D.C.
Inside, according to the report, were supposed to be ten reserve engines, eight reserve ladder trucks and two reserve rescue squads.
Instead, the report says the investigator found two engines that would not start, a ladder truck that would not start, and one being worked on in the driveway.
As for the rescue squads — there were three – but one that wouldn’t start.
The report also says the department’s emergency plan calls for 12 battalion reserve engines. But over the course of the seven-month investigation, the most ever listed was five.
The ambulances were another matter. Of the 31 listed in reserve, at times there were none, at other times there were just two, and the most the investigator found were 14.
On Thursday when FOX 5 asked the Deputy Mayor for Public Safety about the ladder trucks in reserve and the readiness of the fleet, this is what he had to say.
“I received a report recently that we have a reserve fleet,” said Paul Quander. “And I don’t mind going out with you. And if we need to count one by one, we count one by one. I think that’s the best way to put this matter to issue. If it’s there, it’s there. If it’s not, it’s not. Let’s go and see. Let’s go and count.”
It’s unclear if Quander had seen this report at the time of our interview. The inspector general says it was emailed on March 21.
The report goes on to say, “The limited documentation available and the overwhelming sentiment expressed to the OIG team by employees at all levels indicate that such deficiencies are real and negatively impact the day to day availability of both frontline vehicles at many fire stations and the vehicles in reserve status designated to replace them.”
“There is no planning,” said Union President Ed Smith. “It’s all fly by the seat of your pants and the citizens are suffering and my members are put at risk every day when they get out there on the rigs.”
A week ago Wednesday, FOX 5 first reported the union’s claim the reserve numbers given to the D.C. City Council in February were false and that apparatus claimed as in the reserve fleet had actually been sold or placed out of service.
Later that night, Chief Ellerbe issued a press release thanking the union for bringing the issue to light.
“It is poor management at the top and it alludes to that in this report,” said Smith.
One of the more eye opening facts in the report points out that Truck 3, the tower truck that would be first due to the White House, was repaired 138 times from January of 2009 to May of 2012. It is a number the inspector general decided to highlight.
Chief Ellerbe answered the report with a press release saying the department was already moving ahead with the recommendations of the inspector general and would report back in 60 days.
Seven people, including a fire captain, two firefighters and four medics, have been singled out for discipline after an injured D.C. police officer waited more than 20 minutes for an ambulance.
A report released Thursday says the captain failed to properly monitor the situation on March 5th when the officer was hit by a car. The other six were in ambulances that were improperly out of service.
As FOX 5 first reported Tuesday night, the investigation singled out three ambulance crews for not monitoring their radios after going out of service the evening of March 5.
Medic 27 was east of the Anacostia River and the closest when Officer Sean Hickman was seriously injured in a hit-and-run.
But the first responder taking the bulk of the blame is the captain working that day as the emergency liaison officer.
According to the report prepared by the Deputy Mayor for Public Safety, the fire captain was working inside the Office of Unified Communications and should have known an officer was down and dispatchers were looking for help.
But the captain, even though he has access to the same data, status information and data screens, was unaware the dispatchers asked for an ambulance to come from Prince George’s County.
“The ELO (Emergency Liaison officer) could have said to the units who had requested relief, ‘No, we are low on available units. You need to stay in service so we can make sure that we are covered,’” said Paul Quander, the Deputy Mayor for Public Safety. “He didn’t do that. Nor did the ELO monitor the situation and return those units to service, which he has the ability to do.”
Quander says the emergency liaison officer is a gatekeeper who keeps his eyes open for problems and makes adjustments if needed.
“I think that it was a major failure that evening,” he said.
But Union President Ed Smith disagrees and says the problem lies within the system.
“The ELO is specifically monitoring two medical channels and routes units to the right hospital,” said Smith. “They are not directly involved with dispatch.”
Smith says to single out this captain is inappropriate when the problem appears to be more with computer system design.
“We need to look at system-wide problems and fix it,” said Smith. “And if it needs more resources, then we get more resources or we make adjustments to the software.”
As FOX 5 reported Tuesday night, Medic 27 and Medic 19 were allowed to temporarily go out of service, but told to monitor the radio.
The crew of Ambulance 15 says it was parked at a firehouse on New Jersey Avenue in Northwest D.C. and unaware they had mistakenly marked themselves out of service when dispatchers were looking for help.
However, the report says Ambulance 15 was actually parked in quarters at Engine 15 in Anacostia at the time of the call.
“I think it is up to every employee to follow the protocols and rules,” said Quander. “And that’s why we have it and so the rules are if you are going out of service, you go out of service on a condition, to monitor the radio in case we need you to respond.”
Quander says all seven face punishment that could possibly end in termination.
The report recommends five remedies, which include keeping four ambulances stocked and ready to go in case an ambulance breaks down.
It was just a couple of weeks ago Quander said at a news conference the fire department should have two ambulances in reserve ready to go.
The D.C. inspector general has beugn an investigation into the D.C. fire department’s staffing levels to see if it can support around the clock emergency response.
The probe was launched in late January after a hundred firefighters called in sick on New Year’s Eve.
The investigation, by FOX 5’s count, is at least the fourth conducted inside the fire department in the last year.
In a letter sent to Chief Kenneth Ellerbe, the inspector general made several requests to include the list of all ambulances and other apparatus that were taken out of service on December 31, 2012 due to the reported staffing shortage.
The letter also asks for the names of all employees responsible for staffing.
On New Year’s Eve, the EMS system was stretched to capacity with one man losing his life after waiting for an ambulance that finally came from Prince George’s County.
FOX 5 has also obtained a document showing the fire department is looking for 20 of its ambulances.
In an email, sent by Deputy Chief John Donnelly to as many as seven other officials in the department, asks for help in locating the rigs.
Donnelly is conducting an audit of the department’s entire fleet after FOX 5 reported last Wednesday the number of trucks and pumpers given to the city council were false, and that as many as six pumpers and two ladder trucks claimed as reserves in the city are no longer in the fleet and have actually been sold. Still, others were unaccounted for.
And there is more. The inspector general has already completed an investigation into the fire department’s fleet, which according to sources is now being reviewed by Chief Ellerbe.
That probe began after an investigator was shown all of the stored fire equipment parked in and behind a building on Gallatin Street in Northwest D.C.
At his bi-weekly news conference Wednesday, the mayor declined to directly address the issues.
“I think you know that I have asked the deputy mayor, who happens to be ill today, that’s why he is not here, I’ve asked him to conduct a review of a number of issues in FMES,” said D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray. “The report will be out this week. It probably would have been out [Wednesday] if he hadn’t taken ill, but it will be out before the end of the week and I think I would rather wait until we get the report.”
On the staffing issue, FOX 5 has also obtained a letter marked confidential from former Chief Dennis Rubin to Chief Ellerbe as he was about to take over the department.
Rubin complains about staffing in the letter saying 603 people were hired during his administration, but they lost 336 people.
In the letter, Rubin wrote: “Unfortunately, my administration always needed to fill vacant seats on ambulances and fire trucks using overtime, and I found myself under incredible pressure to reduce overtime spending from all directions.”
In a statement, Chief Ellerbe said, “We welcome a review by the Office of the Inspector General of this unprecedented event where more than a hundred firefighters called in sick this past New Year’s Eve. We will cooperate fully with this investigation and look forward to its outcome.”
As for the ambulances the deputy chief was looking for? Just after 6 p.m. Wednesday, a spokesman for the mayor said all of the ambulances had been accounted for.
Two weeks ago, a D.C. motorcycle officer waited nearly 20 minutes for an ambulance after he was struck in a hit-and-run. Officials have since focused on why and how one of their own was left helpless.
The leaked report of Deputy Mayor Paul Quander’s investigation into what happened found there were three ambulances at fire stations in the vicinity of the accident.
ABC7 spoke with D.C. EMS Union officials who say the crews in question never heard a call.
“If they were available why weren’t they dispatched?” ambulance union president Kenneth Lyons asks. “I think that’s the question you have to ask … why weren’t these two units dispatched?”
Lyons tells ABC7 that the crews of two of the ambulances in question that he represents were monitoring the dispatch channel two weeks ago when the police officer was struck in a hit and run on his motorcycle and lay on the ground 20 minutes until an ambulance from Maryland came to get him. The two units were in a delay status, but could have been called.
“Units don’t self dispatch just because you hear a call, especially at a busy time of day,” Lyons says. “We’re not allowed to do that.”
Fire union president Ed Smith blamed a computer glitch for the fact the third ambulance crew he represents was not listed among available units.
“They realized there was a problem, went to jump in an ambulance and go on a run, and it wouldn’t start,” Smith says. “So now w’ere back to mechanical issues again.”
When reporters tried to ask the Mayor Vincent Gray about the report today, he said Quander was sick today and until Quander officially releases it, he’ll not comment.
The fire union blames Fire Chief Kenneth Ellerbe for poor equipment and staffing and are holding a no confidence vote Monday.
Asked about Ellerbe, Gray says, “I’m delighted to work with him.”
When the call was dispatched on March 5, D.C. said they had no available EMS units to send. An ambulance from Prince George’s County arrived 20 minutes later. Nearly an hour passed between the time the officer was struck and his arrival time at MedStar Washington Hospital.
“There are at least three units that I am focusing on that were listed as out of service inappropriately,” D.C. Deputy Mayor Paul Quander said during a press conference earlier this month.
Sources say that of the 39 ambulances scheduled as on duty that night, nine were listed as out of service. Of those nine, six were valid mechanical issues, but three were improperly taken out of service.
One crew didn’t log back into the system properly and were off the dispatcher’s radar. But the other two were considered to be in “delayed relief mode” and had been told to “monitor the radio” should an important call be dispatched.
Regardless of what led to the breakdown, D.C. residents say the lack of response is still concerning.
Reading the latest news accounts, it appears today’s regularly scheduled press conference should include some questioning of Mayor Vince Gray about the DC Fire & EMS Department. On Monday, with no comments coming from Chief Ellerbe or Deputy Mayor Paul Quander, a spokesman for Mayor Gray said the previous administration “neglected” the fire department leaving the city “unprepared”. It is expected, according to news accounts, that there will be a release of findings at today’s event of why no ambulance was available to take a seriously injured DC police officer to the hospital two weeks ago. Details of that investigation are already out.
FOX 5 has obtained the initial findings of an investigation into the March 5th ambulance response for an injured D.C. police officer.
Sean Hickman waited at least 20 minutes for an ambulance that eventually came from Prince George’s County. The Sixth District officer was on a scooter when police say he was intentionally run over by a man in car.
Sources familiar with the investigation say two ambulances should have been able to respond, but did not for reasons still unclear, and a third may have gone out of service by mistake.
The findings are expected to be made public Wednesday morning at the mayor’s bi-weekly news conference.
Sources familiar with the investigation say when the initial call for service went out at 6:36 p.m. that night, one ambulance was in quarters east of the river and near the scene of the accident, but did not respond even though the crew was told to monitor the radio.
Sources say Medic 27 went out of service for equipment trouble and parked at a fire house on Minnesota Avenue in Northeast D.C. when the call for the hit-and-run came in.
The crew went out of service at 6:27 p.m. after reporting problems with two batteries in a piece of equipment on the rig.
At 6:36 p.m., an engine with a paramedic was dispatched to the hit-and-run at 46th and A Streets in Southeast while communications searched for an ambulance.
Sources say a second crew, Medic 19, was at Howard University Hospital and asked for a delayed response back to quarters on Pennsylvania Avenue, SE, and went out of service at 6:34 p.m. after being also told to monitor the radio.
The call for the hit-and-run came in two minutes later.
A third crew, Ambulance 15, went out of service for 53 minutes from 6:26 p.m. to 7:19 p.m.
According to the crews’ own account, it was a mistake. They entered the wrong information into the rig’s computer and put themselves out of service.
20 minutes after the initial call for help went out, Ambulance 15 was still parked at a fire station on New Jersey Avenue, NW.
“It was a computer error,” says Union President Ed Smith. “They lost them in the system. Once the employees realized there was a problem, they self-reported the problem and then they were dispatched on another run.”
Smith says the firefighters realized their mistake when they heard a call for service over the radio that should have been given to them.
“They heard a run coming out that they thought they would be responsible to take and that’s when they realized there was a problem and self-reported to dispatch,” said Smith.
Sources familiar with the report say 39 ambulances were on duty that night, with nine out of service at the time of the call for the injured officer.
The investigation has discovered six of those transports were legitimately out of service with mechanical problems.
On March 5th a D.C. Police Officer—a victim of a hit-and-run—laid in the street for nearly 20 minutes with a broken leg before he was finally taken to the hospital by an ambulance from Prince George’s County.
In a report set to be released later Tuesday, sources familiar with the investigation tell ABC7 they found that 39 ambulances scheduled on duty that night, nine of those were listed as “out of service.”
Of those nine ambulances, six had valid mechanical issues, but three were improperly taken out of service.
One crew did not log back into the system properly and were off the dispatcher’s radar. But, the other two were considered in “delayed relief mode,” and had been told to “monitor the radio,” and should an important call come, they were told to respond.
ABC7 spoke with D.C. EMS union officials, who say, the two crews in question never heard a call for a dispatch.
Regardless of what led to the confusion, district residents told ABC7 that something needs to change.
“The previous administration left the city unprepared. … It takes time to turn around a department that was neglected for so long,” said Ribeiro, who noted the agency has ordered or received 45 ambulances since Gray became mayor.
Here’s a little more from Blinder’s article:
D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson said Monday that the DC Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department suffered an “embarrassment” by being forced to acknowledge it misled city lawmakers last month about the state of its fleet. “It’s always a concern of mine that the council receive accurate information,” Mendelson said. “It’s an embarrassment to the department that the information they provided turned out to be incorrect.”
Anyone who has heard my presentations knows my philosophy on ambush interviews of public officials by reporters. Because often they provide more theatrics than substance I tried to only use them when an official continuously refused to answer questions on important public issues. Apparently my friend Paul Wagner feels the same way. He has been trying since last week to get some answers from Fire Chief Kenneth Ellerbe and Deputy Mayor Paul Quander about the state of the fleet of fire trucks protecting our Nation’s Capital. When neither man would respond to Paul Wagner’s requests for interviews he went in search of Paul Quander and found him.
The D.C. Fire Department admitted on Friday its ladder trucks had not been put through stress tests last year because there were no reserve trucks to take their place. An admission that came after FOX 5 aired a story with a claim by the firefighters union the annual testing hadn’t been done since 2009, risking the safety of firefighters as well as citizens.
The accepted protocol within most, if not all fire departments is that ladder trucks be stress tested annually because of the danger of collapse. It’s an industry standard.
On Friday the D.C. Fire Department admitted it had not tested the trucks last year and left the question of testing in 2011 and 2010 unanswered.
On Monday FOX 5 went to see the Deputy Mayor for Public Safety in hopes of getting some answers.
Paul Quander has so far ignored every single request for comment since the middle of last week.
At first we were told Quander was unavailable when he suddenly left the office and we tried to get some answers. The video reveals our exchange.
“Hey Mr. Quander can I talk to you about a couple of issues?
“(Quander) not right now I am going down to…(Wagner) “There are some serious issues about safety right now and you are the head of public safety in the city”.
“(Quander) as I said I can’t talk to you right now, I have a meeting I need to go to and you didn’t schedule anything”.
“(Wagner) But you ignore me sir, I email, I call, I’m looking for answers and you are not giving us answers, the fire department admitted Friday night Mr. Quander it didn’t have any reserve trucks last year and they are not testing these ladder trucks isn’t that a public safety issue? Isn’t that a public safety issue sir? You are the head of public safety, firefighters are possibly in danger who are climbing theseladders that haven’t beentested, how come you are ignoring me?
In the same press release from Friday the fire department said it had tested one truck on Monday March 11th.
“Well Paul it’s pretty disgusting because we had a firefighter fatality in 1999 on Cherry Road”, said Union President Ed Smith, “One of the recommendations in that report was to keep the reserve fleet ready and there was a truck out of service that night and there was a delay on the second truck responding, we had the same delay when four firefighters were hurt on 48th Place, so apparently we don’t ever learn our lesson and the city is putting everybody’s safety at risk”.
The after action report on the Cherry Road fire lists current Chief Kenneth Ellerbe as taking part in the report which recommends “the department maintain an adequate reserve fleet”.
Last year in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania an aerial ladder collapsed while fighting a blaze at an auto repair shop, seriously injuring one firefighter.
Later this week, perhaps by Wednesday, the city will announce the outcome of an investigation into why there were no ambulances to take an injured D.C. Police officer to the hospital in a hit and run crash March 5th.
One other note, City Council Chairman Phil Mendelson said today he still has confidence in Fire Chief Kenneth Ellerbe but he needs to put the EMS transport problems and fleet maintenance issues behind him.
Mendelson says it’s unacceptable for a stroke victim to be taken to the hospital in a fire engine and if it’s best practice to stress test ladder trucks? Get it done.
Even with, or possibly because, of all the bad press and self inflicted wounds of the last few weeks, the Editorial Board of The Washington Post gave its own vote of confidence to Chief Kenneth Ellerbe. In an editorial posted online last night and in today’s print edition, the Post supports Chief Ellerbe’s idea of EMS redeployment and the proposed move away from 24-hour shifts for firefighters. The editorial gives the indication those are the solutions to what ails the DC Fire & EMS Department. The editorial does not cover any of the recent issues about the disrepair of the department’s fleet of ambulances and fire trucks and the questions surrounding Chief Ellerbe’s handling of that issue.
Here are the opening and closing paragraphs of the editorial:
Demand for ambulance service drops off at 1 a.m. and doesn’t pick up again until about 7 a.m. D.C. fire and emergency medical officials argue it makes sense to move some crews and equipment that are sitting idle to times when they are needed. The fact that such a common-sense change has yet to happen is testament to the dysfunctional politics that have brought the department to what Kenneth B. Ellerbe, chief of Fire and Emergency Medical Services, called a “tipping point.”
Mr. Ellerbe makes a strong case for breaking with tradition in how the department schedules and deploys its staff. The mission of the department has changed as the result of advances in building safety and fire prevention; more than 80 percent of calls are for medical emergencies, not fires. There is no understating the importance of firefighters or the considerable risks they take, and they have raised issues that bear scrutiny. But decisions about the direction of the department should be made by those in charge, based on what best serves public needs.
A little after noon today DC Fire & EMS Department Communications Director Lon Walls sent out a notification to the news media of a 2:00 press conference to discuss recent major EMS issues saying, “Kenneth B. Ellerbe, and other public officials will hold a press briefing in front of the Department’s headquarters.” But it turned out that Chief Ellerbe was not among the scheduled speakers. He spoke only when reporters made an issue of the fact that Chief Ellerbe was just standing in the background and hadn’t said anything.
As you will see below, WUSA-TV reporter Kristin Fisher used the word ”bizarre” to describe the press conference. Having watched the whole thing live on News Channel 8, I would say Kristin’s description is probably accurate. It wasn’t just Chief Ellerbe’s diminished role at the briefing. There was the ”system worked” comment from Dr. David Miramontes, an assistant chief and the department’s medical director that you knew as you heard it would be one of the headlines of the day. And then there was the image of both the chief and the doctor wearing sunglasses in front of the TV cameras. There were so many basic rules of PR/Media Relations 101 violated by today’s event and the entire week that if someone in DC attending EMS Today was paying attention they would have enough material to teach a whole class on just this for next year’s convention.
On the plus side, Deputy Mayor Paul Quander and Deputy Fire Chief Demetrios Vlassopoulos both did a nice and clear job of defending the decision of the crew of Engine 33 to scoop up a stroke victim last night and make a run for the hospital rather than wait for an ambulance that wasn’t going to make it to the scene anytime soon. Quander was also very clear in his promise that “everyone will be held accountable” from the front lines to management in the investigation of why so many ambulances were unavailable Tuesday evening when a police officer was struck on his motorcycle.
It took three days, but the District’s fire chief finally addressed why an injured police officer had to wait almost twenty minutes for an ambulance Tuesday night. That officer is still in the hospital in serious condition after being hit by a car while stopped on his motorcycle.
The remarks came during a bizarre press conference Friday afternoon. It was held at the fire departments headquarters, so you would expect the fire chief to do most of the talking. But that wasn’t the case. Chief Kenneth Ellerbe didn’t say a word until the end of the press conference when a WUSA9 reporter asked him to address his department’s response time Tuesday night.
“I tell you our department responded as best it could,” said Chief Ellerbe.
One of his Assistant Fire Chiefs went so far as to say, “Tuesday, the system worked.”
Edward Smith, the president of city’s firefighters union, disagrees.
“There was a delay of 8 minutes calling for mutual aid from Prince George’s County. Communications should have known right off the bat that there were no units available and that mutual aid was necessary,” said Smith.
To make matters worse, a stroke patient in Southeast had to be rushed to the hospital Thursday night on a fire truck. The closest ambulance was seven miles away.
“The reason an ambulance was selected seven miles away was not because we had numerous units out of service or broken. They were just running a lot of calls yesterday during rush hour because that’s when the demand peaked,” said Gerald Coles, Acting Assistant Fire Chief for Operations for DC Fire and EMS.
In an effort to ease the demand, the fire department announced Friday an EMS Redeployment Plan, which would keep two ambulances on standby at all times.
“The plan was implemented starting yesterday,” said Chief Ellerbe.
The Chief says they’ve been working on the plan for months, and that the timing is just a coincidence. But Smith says this is the first he’s ever heard about it and that the timing is highly questionable.
“It’s a step in the right direction, but two ambulances is not enough,” said Smith.
The District’s Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice, Paul Quander, has launched an investigation into Tuesday’s nights lengthy response time.
“If there is responsibility at management, at supervision, or at the lowest level, everyone will be held accountable,” said Quander.
Quander says there’s also reason to believe that the person who hit the officer did so deliberately. Three people have already been arrested and charged in the hit and run, but more charges could be coming. D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier declined to talk about the case, except to say that her officer has a long recovery ahead.
District officials are defending a decision to transport a 79-year-old stroke victim to the hospital on a fire truck.
The Deputy Mayor for Public Safety says there were so many calls for service Thursday night, there were no ambulances available east of the Anacostia River.
It is a fact that does not sit well with the man’s family.
D.C. fire officials say there were plenty of ambulances to meet demand in the city until about 4:30 p.m. Thursday when 911 was overwhelmed with calls for help.
Every ambulance was in service and assigned when Ida Sheppard called to say her husband was having a stroke. A paramedic was on the scene within three minutes, but the closest ambulance was over seven miles away.
Just after 5 p.m., Sheppard called 911 to say her husband, Morrison, was in distress and needed help right away.
A few minutes later, Engine 33, which happens to be just down the street from where the Sheppards live on Atlantic Street, was in front of the house and a paramedic inside.
“They said he needs to be taken to the hospital right away,” said Ida Sheppard in an interview Friday. “We are going to take him to GW because they have a stroke unit.”
Sheppard says she was fine with that and watched as the firefighters loaded her husband into the engine.
“They had to carry him out in their arms … He couldn’t walk,” she said.
Sheppard praised the care the crew on Engine 33 gave her husband, but she finds it upsetting an ambulance was unavailable.
“I would like the mayor to know there was no ambulance,” said Sheppard. “I planned on calling him … It shouldn’t happen here in Ward 8 where we are paying income taxes and real estate taxes.”
At a Friday afternoon news conference, city officials had nothing but praise for the firefighters on Engine 33.
“We had no units out of service (for) mechanical (reasons) yesterday,” said Deputy Fire Chief Demetrios Vlassopoulos. “No transport units, ambulances or medic units. They were all serving the citizens. They were all meeting the 911 demand. This incident yesterday was a good decision by the firefighter paramedic on the scene.”
At the same news conference, the Deputy Mayor for Public Safety says he was still trying to determine why there were no ambulances available earlier this week to assist a D.C. police officer seriously injured in a hit-and-run.
Tommy Wells, the head of the D.C. city council’s Judiciary Committee, says he has told the deputy mayor and the fire chief he wants answers.
“I want to know exactly what is going on,” said Wells. “Do we have a staffing shortage? Do we have a problem with not enough ambulances? So I will give the administration two weeks to do a full search, report, investigation so we can get to the bottom of it.”
Wells says he will then hold an oversight hearing in hopes of getting the issue resolved.
The deputy mayor also said Friday the fire department has put into place a plan that will hold two ambulances in reserve every shift so if one breaks down, the crew will go to the backup.
Ida Sheppard says her husband is in stable condition and resting.
As we reported on Thursday, DC Fire & EMS Department Chief Kenneth Ellerbe told CNN that the city’s firefighters would not be filling any more swimming pools after an almost week-long controversy erupted over a busy engine company being taken out of service for such a detail on an extremely busy day. But apparently someone in the department doesn’t watch CNN, local TV news, or read The Washington Times and STATter911.com.
Just two days after Chief Ellerbe clearly stated his position, and exactly one week after the incident I dubbed “Water-Gate” occurred, another busy engine company went out of service to fill a pool.
One week after the D.C. fire department was criticized for filling a private pool in the hours after a devastating storm, it has happened again. Firefighters filled a large inflatable pool on Saturday for a Columbia Heights block party using water from a nearby hydrant.
The pool was filled after residents hosting the block party walked into the station house Saturday morning and asked for help. They told the official on duty it would take hours if they just used hoses from their homes. By 11 a.m., the pool was filled and now the fire chief wants to know why.
A photograph, obtained by FOX 5, shows firefighters from Engine 11 running a hose down the 1300 block of Newton Street to fill the pool in the middle of the block.
A second photo from the fire department’s computer-aided dispatch shows Engine 11 out of service at 10:15 a.m.
“The chief involved determined that it wasn’t a private pool and how he came to that conclusion is beyond me,” said Fire Chief Kenneth Ellerbe. “It’s not a municipal pool so it must be a private pool, and when he gets to work, we will have a conversation with him at least.”
Engine 11 is stationed at the fire house at 14th and Newton Street in Northwest D.C., just steps from where the block party was being held.
Neighbors said the fire department had performed the service before and they didn’t see a problem with it.
“I don’t see any reason why they can’t,” said neighbor Michael Norman. “They went right off the fire hydrant and within 15 or 20 minutes, the pool was full.”
But a week ago Saturday, firefighters from Engine 30 filled a private pool as other units responded to a heavy volume of storm-related calls.
Chief Ellerbe said it wouldn’t happen again.
“I think that our citizens look at it as an expedient way to get a pool filled because of the gallons per minute that we can discharge,” said the Chief. “But they have to understand that it’s not our purpose, so we will have a conversation with the chief. We’re looking at it right now.”
But the residents on Newton Street defended their request, seeing nothing wrong with getting a little help.
“I don’t see a problem with it personally, but I just think that we’ve been doing this, a little tradition for the past seven years, and if they can help out, I think it’s fine,” said a man identified only as Butch.
“They didn’t even [get] here for 15, 20 minutes,” said Norman. “And as fast as they can wind the hose back up, if they got a call, they could have left.”
But as the firefighters union pointed out, water costs money and firefighters are paid to save lives and property, not carry out favors by filling private pools.
Chief Ellerbe says the filling of the private pool after the storm is still under investigation, but says it was not done as a favor to anyone with connections within the fire department.
In fact, the chief says, the request was initially turned down at the highest levels, but never communicated to the officials in charge of Engine 30.
CNN’s Lisa Sylvester reports “a battalion chief is now being reprimanded” for the incident I dubbed “watergate” (unfortunately no one else likes my name for this). This was the assignment of one of the busiest engine companies in the country to go out of service to fill an above ground swimming pool. This happened on a day the DC Fire & EMS Department handled more than 1500 calls in the aftermath of last Friday’s storm that caused major power disruptions for much of the National Capital area.
DC Fire & EMS Department Chief Kenneth Ellerbe told Sylvester yesterday, “They ran it up the flag pole and they were told not to do it, but unfortunately that information was not communicated down to the company level. We found out where the break down is and we are going to just have to take appropriate action.”
According to Sylvester, Chief Ellerbe insists there is no connection between the homeowner and anyone in the fire department that brought about this special treatment. When asked if the department will be filling any pools in the future Chief Ellerbe said, “No”. It was also interesting that despite all that work the crew from Engine 30 did to fill that pool, it has now been drained (see the picture below).
If you’ve been following this story since the start, I hope you’ve been paying attention. There is a real good media lesson in this one. In the next few days I hope to discuss how the filling of a little above-ground swimming pool because of what Chief Ellerbe now says was a simple communications screw-up aroused such suspicion that the story lasted all week and then made national news. Lots of missteps that you can learn from.
In the story above from ABC7/WJLA-TV Chief Kenneth Ellerbe says “If we they missed a bunch of calls while they were doing it then it was an outrageously bad decision”.
The story I’ve dubbed “watergate” is making the news for the second night in a row in the Nation’s Capital. In fact, it is one of three different stories about the actions of the administration of the DC Fire & EMS Department that local reporters worked on today. Click here to check out our other post this evening. It covers the demotion of a lieutenant for not telling a TV crew to stop shooting video of a patient on a public street and for failing to wear a compliant jacket, along with the ACLU’s letter about recent disciplinary action against two battalion chiefs.
In two TV news reports this evening about “watergate” Chief Ellerbe says an investigation is being launched. In a third the chief told a reporter he would neither confirm nor deny the incident took place (and you wonder why I call it “watergate”).
“It doesn’t sound like it would be appropriate, no matter how many calls we had,” he (Mayor Gray) said.
An internal department document obtained by The Washington Times shows that an official request to “fill water pool” was sent through the department Thursday, the day before the massive stormed knocked out power in large swaths of the region.
At the bottom of the “Special Events Notice,” the name “W. Wright” appears as the person who sent the request through the department. When reached at the phone number listed on the document, William Wright, who works for the fire department and is listed in D.C. personnel records as a customer service specialist, declined to comment.
Less than 24 hours after the storm roared through the city leaving ten of thousands without power, someone at the highest level of the fire department ordered Engine 30 out of service and told the sergeant in command to go to a home on 55th Street and fill its above-ground pool.
A man who lives across the alley from the yard with the pool says he watched from his porch as the firefighters pulled out the hose and filled the pool.
“I thought it was mighty strange but I have never seen that done before, you know, that a fire truck would come and fill you tank up for you,” says David Edwards. DC Breaking Local News Weather Sports FOX 5 WTTG
A person who answered the phone at the home declined to comment and hung up.
The water is free to the fire department if it’s drawn from a hydrant, but homeowners have to pay for it.
Another neighbor told us she would never ask the city to fill up her pool even if she had one.
The “watergate” pool from WRC-TV.
“We have ports on the side of our homes where we can attach a water hose to it and fill it up ourselves,” says Vonnie Brawner. “But no, I wouldn’t, and I think the fire department should put the priorities in order.”
Ed Smith, President of the D.C. Firefighters Union, says he is astounded anyone would have ordered a private pool to be filled unless there was an actual emergency.
When asked if it was improper, Smith responded, “Yeah, I would say so. It’s highly unusual on a normal day, much less given a state of emergency as in Saturday, one day after the storm.”
Smith says he would like to know who ordered the pool to be filled and why.
“We as firefighters believe in being out in the community and participating as much as possible,” he says. “We cannot lose sight of our core mission, and our core mission is to respond to emergencies, whether it’s medical, fire, terrorism. We need to be in service for our core mission as much as possible.”
Smith estimates the engine was out of service for at least a half an hour filling the pool and then heading to a hydrant for a refill of its own.
A spokesperson for DC Water estimates it costs about $10 to fill up a pool of that size.
We asked D.C. Fire and EMS Chief Kenneth Ellerbe for a comment, but he would neither confirm nor deny that this took place. He did issue a statement that doesn’t address the filling of the pool.
In that statement, Chief Ellerbe says regarding inquiries on our storm-related activities during this past weekend:
“We feel that the real storm-related story is the fact that Fire and EMS responded to more than 1,550 calls during and after Friday’s storm. The department was staffed at 100% and our firefighters worked tirelessly through adverse weather and heat conditions.”
D.C. Fire Chief Kenneth Ellerbee says he is launching an investigation to find out who approved the request.
Ellerbee added, “I don’t know why they did it. I don’t think I would have done it. I know I would not have done it, but it may have been to help a citizen who was hot.”
But, union leaders say they have a pretty good idea who gave the pool priority.
Ed Smith, the president of Local 36, said, “It had to come down from headquarters.”
Who did it, why and who ordered it? In tax records, the owner of the townhouse at 324 55th St. NE is identified as Annie Marby, but no one at the home would talk to News4 Tuesday.
“Well, first I would think that the fire union would be talking about the great work that their members did over the weekend responding to the storm,” he said. “We don’t open hydrants ordinarily for anything other than firefighting operations or training, so we’ve got to look at what happened, investigate it.”
(Note: I inadvertently failed to add a link to Andrea Noble’s article and the picture of the pool (here it is). For those who asked this is an above-ground, private pool. My apologies.)
Engine 30 is one of the busiest companies in the nation and the Nation’s Capital. Saturday was likely the busiest day of 2012 as the city and the region coped with the aftermath of the deadly storm late Friday night that knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of homes and created a lot of extra work for those in public safety. The DC Fire & EMS Department reported on its Twitter feed that it handled more than 1500 emergency calls in a 24 hour period on Saturday.
Andrea Noble at The Washington Times reports some of that extra work on Saturday wasn’t created by the storm, but was man-made. According to Noble, it was an order to put the crew from Engine 30 out of service for an hour and sent them to the 300 block of 55th Street, NE to fill a swimming pool. (We know how reporters like to use the suffix “gate” in naming government scandals in honor of the ultimate one 40-years-ago that brought down a president. Shouldn’t this one also be called “watergate”?)
“It’s a highly unusual request even on a normal day,” said D.C. Firefighters Association President Ed Smith, who confirmed the pool-filling.
Lon Walls, a fire department spokesman, did not respond to requests for comment left at his office, on his cellphone or an emailed request asking about Saturday’s incident in particular and the department’s policy on filling swimming pools in general.
Mr. Smith also confirmed the engine was placed out of service while it completed the task – an action that requires authorization and would likely indicate the crew did not embark on the assignment on its own.
“For the company to go out of service requires a high level of approval,” he said.
“There are no rolling brownouts–or station shutdowns. Units are off the street for various reasons like maintenance and vacation coverage. The public needs to know the city has full and complete coverage.” Those are the words of Lon Walls, Director of Communications for the DC Fire & EMS Department as he told Fox 5/WTTG-TV the department was not using the rotating closures of fire companies to save money.
This conflicts with the press release issued Saturday by President Ed Smith, IAFF Local 36:
The DC Fire Fighters want to make the public aware that Engine 28 at 1763 Lanier Pl NW (serving the U St. Corridor, Adams Morgan, Kalorama, & Cleveland Park neighborhoods) and Truck 14 at 4930 Connecticut Ave. NW (serving the Cleveland Park, Woodley Park, Glover Park, & Cathedral Heights neighborhoods) are closed today to “save on overtime”. Yesterday, June 22nd, 2012, it was Truck 8 quartered at 101 Atlantic St. SE (serving the Congress Heights, Washington Highlands, and Bellevue neighborhoods).
This concept has been tried over the years with disastrous results. Whether it’s labelled “Firehouse Roulette” or “Brown Outs”, the end result is the same – people get hurt. It isn’t a matter of “if” – it’s a matter of “when”…
The department has started this practice this week, on the heels of a major storm passing through the area last night, taxing the Fire Department’s resources.
I want to be clear we do not condone this practice and believe it to be unnecessarily, and highly dangerous.
The question has to be asked - is someone’s life worth a few thousand dollars of overtime?
As the press release points out, The Nation’s Capital used rotating closures in the past as a way to save money. Going back to the 1970s this practice was dubbed “firehouse roulette” by Local 36. Each attempt was halted after significant coverage in the local media about tragic fires that occurred near closed companies. Below, are two stories I did in 1994 that will provide a little history.
The two most senior battalion chiefs in the D.C. fire department say they have been the objects of retaliation and retribution because they decided personnel cases contrary to the wishes of D.C. Fire EMS Chief Kenneth Ellerbe.
The dispute began last summer when a grateful D.C. resident appeared at a U Street fire station with two 12-packs of beer he had purchased as a way to offer his thanks to firefighters for extinguishing a fire at his home.
Told by firefighters that they could not accept the gift, the resident put the beer on the floor of the firehouse, and left.
When the beer was discovered by department leaders, three firefighters were charged with violating department rules, and faced the possibility of suspension.
Richard Sterne presided over two of the cases.
“I considered all the facts. I listened to what they had to say and I made a decision. Apparently the fire chief or somebody didn’t like my decision,” Sterne told 9News Now.
Instead of suspending the firefighters, Sterne chose to give them letters of reprimand. His superiors believe department rules demanded harsher punishment.
He was demoted in rank to captain. At the time he was the senior battalion chief in the department.
” Your failure to hold the members accountable for their receipt of the beer in violation of the Rules of Conduct brings into question your ability to exercise proper judgment in the performance of your assigned duties and responsibilities,” Ellerbe wrote to Sterne in his letter of demotion.
“I think the message is intimidation. I think the message isn’t to me necessarily, it’s to all the other chiefs and officers who have to make independent decisions that you better make a decision that you think is what the fire chief wants,” Sterne said.
“It definitely gives the appearance that our members can’t get a fair hearing,” said Ed Smith, President D.C. Firefighters Association, Local 36.
Battalion Chief Kevin Sloan, the second longest-serving battalion chief in the department, presided over a third case and also did not impose harsh punishment. He was transferred.
“I’m an expert in incident command, rail emergencies, hazardous materials responses,” he said.
“And what are you doing now?” asked 9News Now.
“I’m the battalion chief in charge of toilet paper,” he said.
Ellerbe denies charges of intimidation and retaliation.
“Nobody angered me. We want our employees to do what’s right. There’s no reason for anybody to be afraid of making the right decision,” he told 9News Now.
Ellerbe said he could not specifically respond to Sterne’s complaints.
“Sterne’s complaints are being heard by the Office of Employee Appeals, and that’s where we’ll have to let that case work it’s way out,” he said.
“Regarding Chief Sloan, he was not demoted. His transfer was contemplated weeks before it was effected, and weeks before he made any disciplinary decision.
“I was unaware of the decision he made when his transfer was effected, so it was not a matter of retaliation or anything like that.
“We want to give some of our employees the opportunity to work in different areas, and he had been in operations for many years, and we just changed him into an administrative position when an employee who was in that administrative position was out in operations,” Ellerbe said of Sloan’s transfer.
“The culture now is a culture of fear. It’s a culture of intimidation. It’s a culture of zero morale, which you do not want on a public safety force,” Sloan maintained.
“The battalion chiefs are not going to be able to give them (accused firefighters) a fair trial because they are afraid of retaliation and retribution,” Sloan said.
“There is no fear and hopefully there is definitely not any intimidation,” Ellerbe said.
Both Sloan and Sterne are pursuing legal remedies.
There are many unanswered questions about documents found burning at the DC Fire & EMS Department training academy last Friday. It is truly one of the more unique and bizarre incidents involving public safety in the Nation’s Capital that I have seen.
In the latest news coverage, an email sent a week ago this morning from a Metropolitan Police Department training official mentions a file burn for the next day. The head of the police union believes the documents are related to its attempt through the courts to get police department recruiting records. But, so far, that doesn’t explain why fire department records were part of the burn and what role fire officials may have played in this unusual disposal of documents.
Besides the big picture of trying to figure out a motive for destroying the documents, you can’t help but wonder about the legality of conducting such a burn, whether its city documents or yesterday’s newspapers.
A deputy director of the department’s recruitment bureau wrote to his staff on May 17 that there was to be a “file burn” the next day and the staff should get the items ready that they wanted destroyed. (See the email below.)
The next day, a fire engine company was called to the training academy to put out three burning dumpsters and an abandoned car that had been set on fire. The firefighters noticed what looked like personnel records of firefighters and police officers in the blazing rubble. Police and fire union officials asked the city’s Office of Inspector General yesterday to investigate.
In an email Wednesday, Fraternal Order of Police Chairman Kristopher Baumann alleged that the file burning was an attempt by the department to avoid providing responses to a Freedom of Information Act request. The order filed a lawsuit against the police department May 14 seeking the release of information about recruiting matters.
“We are looking into whether any records retention protocols have been violated,” department spokeswoman Gwendolyn Crump said.
Fire department spokesman Lon Walls on Wednesday said, “The whole matter is under investigation,” and declined to comment further.
In March, Chief Burke was one of those chastised by a D.C. Superior Court judge for making “transparently false” statements in an effort to prevent the release of police documents and policies.
D.C. police and firefighters union officials are asking for an investigation into what they say was a giant blaze involving three dumpsters and an abandoned car’s worth of personnel records, including medical files containing private information.
In a letter sent to the Office of the Inspector General today, the heads of the two unions say that last Friday around 5 p.m., a D.C. fire engine company was dispatched to the city’s fire department training academy to put out three dumpster fires. After the firefighters started putting out the fires, they realized that some of the documents were personnel files of cops and firefighters, the letter says.
The letter continues: “In addition to the burning documents, there were unburned documents scattered on the ground throughout the training facility and unburned documents in an abandoned car. Members of FEMS were able to identify their own training and medical records in the documents in the abandoned car.”
The responding firefighters expressed their concerns to Deputy Fire Chief Michael Willis and took several pictures and videos to document the incident before leaving the scene. Some of the documents shown in the photos appear to be training academy documents from 1997.
At 11 p.m., firefighters were called back to the training academy to extinguish a fire in an abandoned car that was located next to the trash bins that earlier had been ablaze.
“In an apparent effort to assuage their concerns, they were told all of the documents on the ground had been picked up and placed in the car,” the union leaders wrote.
A fire department spokesman said the matter “is currently under investigation.”
The documents, not all of which were successfully destroyed, contained private information such as medical records and Social Security numbers, the letter says.
The unions are asking Willoughby to investigate the incident on the grounds that the files may have been improperly handled, possibly violating personnel privacy. The letter also notes the fire could have destroyed “potential evidence.”
Battalion Chief Kevin Sloan told The Washington Times’ Andrea Noble that Chief Kenneth Ellerbe’s actions are “a classic example of workplace bullying”. Chief Sloan says that he was transferred from operations to the logistics division a week ago, less than four hours after finding Lt. Henry Dent not guilty on charges related to the beer Chief Ellerbe found in a refrigerator at the quarters of Engine 9 last year.
Kevin Sloan said in an article posted this evening on the paper’s website, “It’s not ethical, it’s not moral. It’s retaliatory action.”
Chief Sloan’s case has similarities to the demotion of Battalion Chief Richard Sterne in April after Sterne reduced the penalties against two other firefighters connected to the beer incident.
According to Noble, while Chief Sterne was notified his demotion was directly related to his handling of the disciplinary, Chief Sloan was not given an explanation for his sudden transfer.
As part of Chief Sloan’s findings, he determined that Lt. Dent was not present at the fire station when the beer was delivered, so he could not be held accountable for accepting a gift. He also ruled that when Lt. Dent was notified by another firefighter that there was still beer in the station refrigerator, he told the firefighter to get rid of it but did not have enough time to check to ensure the order was followed through before Chief Ellerbe arrived.
Chief Sloan said the investigation was unusual and that evidence in the case went missing. In one instance, when he requested copies of taped interviews with witnesses the administration simply sent him paper photocopies of CDs, rather than the CDs themselves.
“For the rank and file, this takes away a fair, equitable disciplinary trial for the members,” Chief Sloan said.
According to the article department spokesman Lon Walls refused to comment because the case is a personnel matter, but did say Chief Ellerbe has the final authority in the disciplinary process.
Ed Smith, president of Local 36 of the International Association of Fire Fighters, said there were no political overtones intended in handing POTUS the shirt.
”Those were shirts we had made up last year, before the change,” he said. “Those are the shirts we wear when we’re out in the community, attending different events. … We try to look uniform.”
Lon Walls, an FEMS spokesperson, said he wasn’t reading too much into the giveaway.
“People give stuff to the president all the time,” he said. “I’m sure he doesn’t know what all the issues are.”
For those interested in how fire departments and other public agencies communicate with the press and the public there was a fascinating exchange (above) at yesterday's regularly scheduled press briefing by District of Columbia Mayor Vincent Gray. The press was in somewhat open rebellion about a couple of policies of the DC government that seem to contradict Mayor Gray's pledge of an open and transparent administration.
It started with a question by WJLA-TV reporter Suzanne Kennedy about two recent moves by city officials. One was the encryption of all radio communications for the Metropolitan Police Department (DC Police) and the other, the halting of a very active and popular Twitter feed by the DC Fire & EMS Department that alerted the press and the public to fires, accidents, shootings and other emergencies that fire and ems crews responded to.
The Twitter account had almost 10,000 followers and had provided more than 11,000 Tweets. It had become a primary alerting source for the news media and private citizens. The last Tweet was on August 30. Shortly after the Tweets stopped the police department began encrypting its radio traffic with the justification that smart phone apps allow criminals to listen in on the department's communications much in the way radio scanners have done for decades.
So, the news media and the public lost two important sources that helped them provide oversight of city officials and operations.
Let's make it clear that the best we can tell these both are legal and lawful policies of the District of Columbia government. It is within the rights of city officials to take these actions. There is no law that requires them to maintain a Twitter account or keep their radio communications open. But is this a smart route to go if you want to have transparent and open government in the 21st Century?
Then there is the reaction, not just from the press, but by the public, via Twitter, over the loss of Tweets from @dcfireems and the comments made by the DC Fire & EMS Department's Director of Communications Lon Walls (click here and scroll down). Many blasted Walls for believing that "social media is for parties". In the Washington Times and DCist.com articles you will see Walls is not a fan of Twitter.
Also, take the time to read the column below posted yesterday by Gerald Baron on his blog Crisis Comm for the site Emergency Management. Gerald is a respected leader in the world of crisis communications who wrote the book I often quote, Now is Too Late. The column also mentions something we have covered numerous times on STATter911.com. That is the interference by public safety officials of picture taking by the public and press. We previously posted two such incidents involving DC Police officers that occurred this year (I have added the video below of those stories).
Here's my brief message on this to the administration of Mayor Gray and anyone else who has the responsibility of communicating with the public for routine every day events and in times of crisis. That little thing in everyone's hands that always seems to be a part of their body is how most people get their news these days. It's also how they share news with others, whether it's taking pictures with the camera that is a part of it or using the applications on it like Twitter and Facebook. Those people who are constantly holding and operating these devices are the people you serve and the people who pay your salaries. They want and expect to know what's going on almost instantly via that device. The city has the opportunity to be a valued, trusted and instant source of information that their citizens can rely on every day and in times of major emergencies. And a source that reaches directly to the public without first having to go through the news media. Don't deride it, don't confiscate it, don't ignore it. Instead, embrace it and the reality of how people now communicate.
But enough from me. Here are some words on this subject from a real expert::
This story sort of makes me wonder if DC Mayor Vincent Gray has his communication staff learning cuneiform writing. First this blog post arrived concerning the Mayor's press conference in which he announced that the DC Police would be using encrypted radio, and that the Fire and EMS Service would be in future "filtering" their Twitter feeds. HuffPost reported on the clamp down of communication in this article.
It's really quite bizarre. Every after action report of any consequence of major events highlights the need for interoperable communication and by encrypting all radio messages they certainly have sent interoperability concerns into the closet. Maybe there is sufficient safety justification, I hope so, because if this trend continues the history of major event management shows that lives will be lost because of interoperability issues.
But my primary concern is shutting down Twitter. @dcfireems has been a very popular means of communicating in DC about emergency events. With nearly 10,000 followers it is very clear that it has become the primary means used by DC media to keep the public informed, but equally important is the fact that the public itself is kept informed through those tweets.
In talking with a source close to these matters in DC, it appears that the encrypted radio decision and putting the brakes on Twitter are related and both coming from DC Police. As DC Police moved toward keeping their communication under wraps, it was troubling them that Fire EMS service was tweeting openly about things–some of which involved police. So they felt they couldn't keep the wraps on their communication and allow a sister agency to keep talking. This move by DC Police is in addition to their apparent policy of confiscating the phones of citizen journalists documenting arrests for the apparent purpose of capturing evidence. This is deeply troubling.
Needless to say, those following the Twitter account are not happy–both reporters and the public. The Twitter conversation gives an indication of their thoughts on this.
However, the announcement about this compounded the problem by being less than transparent and honest. The last tweet from Fire/EMS as I understand it was August 31. Initially it was explained that this was because the tweeter, Pete Piringer, had gone on vacation. Then in the press conference it was explained that it was shut down because it had imperiled the operation of another (apparently federal) agency. The real explanation, provided by my source, was only hinted at–that police want to keep the wraps on things.
What absolutely amazes and appalls me coming from communicators in our nation's capital are comments like these:
"After the press conference, Lon Walls, the department's communication director and a former journalist himself, said that accuracy was vital. "I'd rather be slow and right than fast and wrong," he said.
"Social media is for parties. We ain't givin' parties," he added, arguing that safety and sensitive issues had to be considered before tweeting out information on emergencies."
Social media is for parties? I'd rather be slow? Break out the clay tablets, boys and girls. No doubt there are operational concerns with tweeting, no doubt policies and controls need to apply, no doubt mistakes can easily be made with serious consequences. But because cars cause accidents doesn't mean we go back to horses and buggies. I certainly hope DC gets their inter-agency disagreements under control and some leadership is shown about today's realities of public communication.
Above is a June 19 story about a camera confiscated by DC Police after a citizen took pictures of an arrest on a public street.
Above is a story about a July 3 incident where DC Police confronted a man taking pictures of a traffic stop.
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