Nobody in the Uvalde fiasco was ever held responsible. You're kidding yourself if you think anything will come of this. Not in this state.

Valid reasons or not, reconciling dead children with budget cuts and concerns of reimbursement is not a winning strategy. Not saying this is the case, but it's a narrative d stay far, far away from.

Austin is full of a bunch of self loathing fruitcakes that are governed by their superiors who are paid to make the wrong decisions. This doesnt me phase me one bit, who wouldnt help out a neighboring county? are these people all devil worshipers ?

I don't know what the AFD Chief did or didn't do, but I know for a fact there were active duty AFD firefighters who deployed as members of Texas Task Force 1, 2, and 3…

I know some of them personally…

Gross.

FireAg said:

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I don't know what the AFD Chief did or didn't do, but I know for a fact there were active duty AFD firefighters who deployed as members of Texas Task Force 1, 2, and 3…

I know some of them personally…

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Not unusual at all. The Hubs would often travel to other stations on his day off to cover for them while they were deployed back when he was AFD. One thing AFD does well is cross train and The Hubs could fill in for a lot of duty assignments. Truck man, dive rescue, ARF, etc.

aggiehawg said:

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FireAg said:

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I don't know what the AFD Chief did or didn't do, but I know for a fact there were active duty AFD firefighters who deployed as members of Texas Task Force 1, 2, and 3…

I know some of them personally…

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Not unusual at all. The Hubs would often travel to other stations on his day off to cover for them while they were deployed back when he was AFD. One thing AFD does well is cross train and The Hubs could fill in for a lot of duty assignments. Truck man, dive rescue, ARF, etc.

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I did the same when I was with Travis County…

Just don't want anyone holding ill will toward the guys in the department…they've been doing their jobs…a handful for another agency directly involved since the beginning…

And FWIW…they are still deployed…

I don't think anyone is blaming the boots on the ground. I do understand the unions and associations can have alternative motives for the statements they put out. I was a volunteer for several years and I have family in the professional fire service. I know 90% of the guys and gals would have gone to help in a heartbeat if they could have.

Mexico sent some.
many others sent some,
austin fire govt/adm ignored the pleas.

FireAg said:

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aggiehawg said:

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FireAg said:

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I don't know what the AFD Chief did or didn't do, but I know for a fact there were active duty AFD firefighters who deployed as members of Texas Task Force 1, 2, and 3…

I know some of them personally…

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Not unusual at all. The Hubs would often travel to other stations on his day off to cover for them while they were deployed back when he was AFD. One thing AFD does well is cross train and The Hubs could fill in for a lot of duty assignments. Truck man, dive rescue, ARF, etc.

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I did the same when I was with Travis County…

Just don't want anyone holding ill will toward the guys in the department…they've been doing their jobs…a handful for another agency directly involved since the beginning…

And FWIW…they are still deployed…

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Agree. They would be there in a heartbeat if they could. After 9/11, so many called in to try to go up to NYC, not just Texas Task Force members, using their sick time, if necessary. (Vacation time was selected by seniority at the beginning of the year.)

The Hubs was divorced and his kids were out of state for a lot of the years when he first started on the force, so he would always cover the holidays so folks with families, kids could spend holidays with them. Which oddly enough is the reason we first started dating, We had been friends for a few years. One Christmas Day evening he was calling people, getting mostly answering machines but I picked up when he called because I had about 20 friends there for Christmas dinner and I invited him over. Nearly thirty years later, we are still together.

I wonder if Travis County was holding back their rescue resources.I searched STARFlight Austin and cant find any info about them helping down in Kerrville. STARFlight Austin is a very unique ems program. One of the very few in the country that does high angle and swift water rescues. They rescue people from floods on a regular basis in the Austin area. Also, their helicopter which is an Leonardo AW169 is very unique in the country just one other in service. It is made for stuff like this. The AW169 is a very new design and takes a lot of the pilots workload and does it automatically and has a ton of power too. It is also very fast cruises at 165mph but when they have to they can go as fast as 195 miles an hour. What a waste to not use a fantastic helicopter made for this type of rescue that comes with trained swift water rescue crews.




https://www.traviscountytx.gov/emergency-services/star-flight/aircraft/leonardo-aw169

I saw ATCEMS resources on scene in news clips.

That is great to hear. It would have been a tragedy if they didn't use STARFlight

I think they are both managing to talk out of both sides of their mouth.

They were staging in Kerrville on the 2nd/3rd. In one of the early press conferences the city manager said they lost a staged rescue vehicle. By the 4th, Travis County had their own flooding going on and probably couldn't send anyone. But if there's a situation to edge out a guy not on your side, this is probably the best thing they have going for them if there's written documentation not to go.

EX TEXASEX said:

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That is great to hear. It would have been a tragedy if they didn't use STARFlight

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Don't know about Starflight but they did have resources on scene.

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Don't know about Starflight but they did have resources on scene.

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Thanks for the info. I still think If they didn't use it what a waste of resources. they have 3 of them so they would still be able to keep one downtown at The Dell Seton UT Level One Trauma Center and one a Dell Children's Medical Center. I just hope they didn't horde resources when they were REALLY needed down south.

FamousAgg said:

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The approved budget for 24-25 for just the fire department was $262,205,476 with 1,303 Full time firefighters/medics. The entire city has an approved budget of $5,934,847,000.

But $800,000 was the line in the sand.

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The $800,000 & approved budget aren't related.

The City of Austin *does not have the money* to fully fund the $262mil budgeted for AFD. AFD is having to perform internal program cuts through the end of the fiscal year.

They can't take on additional debt without cutting internal programming somewhere else - or - knowledge that the state will pay it back immediately.

The city is managed so piss poorly that they can't cover basic needs, exactly my point.

I am sure they have the money to fully fund the AFD. They don't want to because they would have to cut some BS pet program of theirs. Police/Fire/EMS are not important programs to the City Council of Austin. That is a fact.

EX TEXASEX said:

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I am sure they have the money to fully fund the AFD. They don't want to because they would have to cut some BS pet program of theirs. Police/Fire/EMS are not important programs to the City Council of Austin. That is a fact.

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This is a much bigger issues than "cutting pet projects".

Austin experienced record low sales tax revenue and got fat on federal money that no longer exists. Big money is missing - not pet project funding.

The blame is solely on the city council. The complexity, however, is that the public safety contracts pushed by unions also add to the budget issues. There's more to this story than a Chief ignoring neighboring flood victims.

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The blame is solely on the city council.

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That I am 100% in agreement with you on, The city coucil for decades has understaffed the police dept. Hell, they don't even take non emergency calls anymore. If the union was smart that would have Che Guevara T Shirts mandated to be part of the APD uniform. Our Marxist city leaders would throw money at them non stop once that happened !!


?20220120034834

I prefer this one

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Austin firefighters' union calls for 'no confidence' vote against AFD chief

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The Austin Firefighters Association claims Chief Joel Baker delayed sending firefighters to help with rescue efforts in Kerrville until it was too late.

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https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/afd-chief-accused-of-delayed-help/269-f4d31bd5-5db9-469e-a51a-71fd004e4b3e?ref=exit-recirc