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A Conversation with WPB Fire Chief Diana Matty · Inside West Palm Beach

9:45:26
Welcome to Inside West Palm
9:45:27
Beach. I'm Gerry Marcelo.
9:45:29
People agree that an important measure of
9:45:31
any city's maturity is
9:45:33
its focus on public safety.
9:45:35
After all, looking after the well-being
9:45:37
of residents is at the
9:45:38
core of any community.
9:45:40
Today, we're looking at West
9:45:41
Palm Beach's Fire Department.
9:45:43
We'll learn what makes this team of
9:45:45
professionals so strong and learn some
9:45:47
surprising facts
9:45:48
about them along the way.
9:45:50
That's next on Inside West Palm Beach.
9:45:52
[MUSIC]
9:46:02
Joining us today is
9:46:03
Fire Chief Diana Matty.
9:46:04
Good morning.
9:46:05
Chief, welcome. Thank you for
9:46:06
joining us on the show today.
9:46:07
Absolutely. It's my pleasure. Thank you.
9:46:08
Before we get into talking about the
9:46:10
department, I'd like to
9:46:11
talk a little bit about you.
9:46:12
I mean, tell us about your
9:46:14
voyage to becoming chief.
9:46:16
I mean, it really started, I would say,
9:46:22
as a child because where I grew up was a
9:46:25
very rural community,
9:46:28
and everybody was on the
9:46:29
volunteer fire department.
9:46:30
So my mom, my dad, my
9:46:32
uncle, the whole family...
9:46:34
It's a family affair.
9:46:35
Yes. And the whole family was involved in
9:46:38
responding to the needs of our community.
9:46:40
So I had that sense of
9:46:41
community from a very young age.
9:46:43
So the way that it worked back then is
9:46:47
the volunteers would get alerted.
9:46:49
They would go from whatever they're doing
9:46:50
to the fire station, get the
9:46:52
truck, and drive to the call.
9:46:54
And if there was other people that were
9:46:56
on the road, they would just go right to
9:46:58
where the incident was.
9:46:59
So I'd been on calls from a very young
9:47:01
age where I was just a passenger in the
9:47:03
car that mom or dad
9:47:04
happened to be driving.
9:47:05
So you were exposed
9:47:06
to it from the get-go?
9:47:08
From a very young age.
9:47:09
More importantly, you were exposed to a
9:47:12
sense of community at a very young age.
9:47:15
You said you came from a very small,
9:47:18
tight-knit community?
9:47:18
Yes. I was raised in the Keys.
9:47:21
So back then, the Keys was very rural.
9:47:24
I mean, there was a very small population
9:47:28
back then, and everything depended on the
9:47:32
volunteer fire department.
9:47:33
There was a sheriff's office, but it was
9:47:36
volunteer ambulance,
9:47:37
volunteer fire department.
9:47:39
So they did a lot of events. They did
9:47:41
bingo. They did all those typical
9:47:43
community small-town things.
9:47:45
They did Halloween things for the kids.
9:47:46
So we were always very involved in
9:47:49
whether it was handing out food at
9:47:51
Christmas time to needy
9:47:53
families or whatever it was.
9:47:54
I've always been involved
9:47:56
in civic-minded activities.
9:47:58
Do you think that that same level of
9:47:59
civic mightiness exists today?
9:48:01
Is it something lacking
9:48:03
in our society these days?
9:48:05
I think it's just different. I think
9:48:06
there's just such a
9:48:07
different variety of things.
9:48:10
It's more specialized. You could have a
9:48:12
pug rescue, for example,
9:48:14
or a Boston Terrier rescue.
9:48:17
It's just very specific, where it used to
9:48:19
just be maybe the Humane Society.
9:48:22
So I think there's still a lot of giving.
9:48:24
There's a lot of civic
9:48:25
contribution out there.
9:48:26
We might not see all of those different
9:48:28
avenues where things happen.
9:48:30
So you were exposed to public service and
9:48:32
community involvement
9:48:33
at a very early age.
9:48:35
What brought you into
9:48:37
serving as a firefighter?
9:48:40
I really didn't see it as a career that I
9:48:43
grew up ready to do.
9:48:46
I just had exposure to
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it, so I knew about it.
9:48:50
I was going to go to
9:48:50
college. I was going to UF.
9:48:52
Somebody talked me into, "Why do you want
9:48:58
to be a pharmacist?"
9:49:00
Because that's not really what I wanted
9:49:02
to do. That was what my dad was
9:49:03
suggesting was a great job.
9:49:04
"Why do you want to be a pharmacist?"
9:49:06
"Well, I don't really want to."
9:49:08
So they were like, "Why don't you go to
9:49:11
fire school, and then you can figure out
9:49:13
what you want to do,
9:49:15
and if you could go to college later."
9:49:18
So I went to the fire academy,
9:49:21
and then I got kind of hooked.
9:49:25
For get bangers, tell me
9:49:26
what the fire academy is.
9:49:27
So the fire academy is your basic
9:49:30
everything from learning
9:49:32
how to put on the gear,
9:49:33
to going into the fires, to understanding
9:49:37
about the hoses and the water
9:49:38
supply and how fires behave.
9:49:42
So it's very comprehensive
9:49:43
school, and it's months long.
9:49:45
Is it a school or is it a course subject
9:49:48
that you can take in different places?
9:49:50
So the state colleges have them, and then
9:49:52
there's some independent fire academies,
9:49:56
like a VOTEC type of situation where they
9:49:59
do welding, firefighting, and AC
9:50:01
plumbing, something like that.
9:50:02
So that's the school I went to.
9:50:06
EMT, Emergency Medical Technician
9:50:08
Training, so that's how a lot of fire
9:50:10
departments will hire.
9:50:11
Just those two
9:50:12
certifications can get you in the door.
9:50:15
And back then, West Palm,
9:50:18
you didn't have to be an EMT.
9:50:20
You could be what's
9:50:20
called a first responder.
9:50:21
So I actually got
9:50:22
hired as a first responder.
9:50:23
I wasn't certified as an EMT yet.
9:50:25
So I did become, obviously, a few months
9:50:28
later, and then later on
9:50:29
went to paramedic school,
9:50:30
but in those days they
9:50:31
were just hiring firefighters.
9:50:33
And that was in 1994.
9:50:36
So and then the rest of your career has
9:50:39
been working with the
9:50:40
city of West Palm Beach?
9:50:41
Yeah, I've spent October will be 32 years
9:50:44
that I've been with the
9:50:45
city of West Palm Beach.
9:50:45
And so at what point do you
9:50:47
go back to pharmacy school?
9:50:48
It's not happening.
9:50:51
I have been a street pharmacist as a
9:50:53
paramedic for many years and learned a
9:50:56
different type of pharmacology.
9:50:59
So kind of got it a little bit, but I
9:51:02
don't see myself in a white lab coat.
9:51:04
No, I can understand that.
9:51:06
But you have a wonderful story where you
9:51:09
were exposed to this type of public
9:51:12
service at a very early age.
9:51:15
Recruiting now for
9:51:17
firefighters, is it an easy thing?
9:51:20
Is there a lot of folks who want to
9:51:21
become involved or is there a challenge
9:51:23
finding appropriate candidates?
9:51:24
It is getting more challenging because as
9:51:28
fire departments are
9:51:28
changing their shift schedule
9:51:30
from a 48 hour work week to a 42 hour
9:51:35
work week or in some cases a 54 hour work
9:51:37
week to a 42 hour work week.
9:51:40
You need more bodies.
9:51:41
You need more firefighters.
9:51:43
And we'll call the fire
9:51:46
schools the top of the funnel.
9:51:48
And they've got to go in the funnel and
9:51:50
then we're down here at the end and
9:51:52
somebody's got to shake out down here.
9:51:54
Well now all the fire
9:51:55
departments are competing.
9:51:57
So we've got to get more
9:51:58
people in the funnel up top.
9:52:00
And that's where programs like our Junior
9:52:02
Alerts program come in.
9:52:04
And that's middle school age kids where
9:52:06
we're trying to instill an interest in
9:52:08
the job at a young age so that we can get
9:52:11
them on that track if
9:52:12
they're interested in it.
9:52:14
And how successful have we been trying to
9:52:16
get young people involved?
9:52:18
We've only been doing it for three years
9:52:19
now, but the program has
9:52:21
become wildly successful.
9:52:23
It's very popular. We went from I think a
9:52:26
dozen or so kids the
9:52:28
first year this past time.
9:52:30
I think 21 graduated. So it's growing.
9:52:34
And the interest is there.
9:52:35
The community support is there.
9:52:37
The funding, you know, we're still
9:52:38
working out all those details, but it
9:52:40
looks like we're going to be able to
9:52:42
support it even
9:52:43
better for the coming year.
9:52:45
So that pairs with what the high schools
9:52:48
are doing, which is the
9:52:49
fire academies in high school.
9:52:51
So then once the kids can get on that
9:52:53
track, when they get out of high school,
9:52:55
they already know what they want to do
9:52:57
and they can get right into the college.
9:52:59
So this developing, growing local talent,
9:53:01
as it were, is really important.
9:53:03
I would assume with the growth that we're
9:53:05
seeing here in West Palm Beach, the
9:53:07
growth, the inflow of businesses and new
9:53:10
residents, that the need to expand fire
9:53:14
staff is probably pretty important.
9:53:17
It is. It is. And we have to keep up with
9:53:19
that. So some of the ways that we do
9:53:21
that, we track our response times, we
9:53:23
track the training hours that we need.
9:53:25
And what we've been able to do and been
9:53:28
very successful with over the years is to
9:53:30
grow our fire department through grant
9:53:32
funding, because it kind of
9:53:33
gets us some training wheels.
9:53:35
Right. So where we identify the need, we
9:53:37
can apply for a grant. The federal
9:53:39
government gives us a little bit of a
9:53:40
boost for a couple of years and it helps
9:53:42
take that initial burden off of the city
9:53:45
as we start to grow.
9:53:46
So we're always identifying avenues for
9:53:49
improvement, but we have to be very
9:53:53
measured with our approach because we
9:53:54
don't... I think the saying's been around
9:53:58
in the city, we don't
9:53:59
build a bridge to nowhere.
9:54:00
We don't want to have fire trucks sitting
9:54:02
there that aren't doing anything. So we
9:54:05
need to be measured
9:54:06
in our growth as well.
9:54:07
Yeah. Very, very purposeful in the
9:54:09
strategies that you have as far as
9:54:11
expansion and growth and matching what's
9:54:14
happening in the city. And just
9:54:15
tremendous amount of growth.
9:54:17
One of the things that I think a lot of
9:54:18
people don't realize is just how busy you
9:54:20
guys actually are. We all, just citizens
9:54:23
will hear an occasional siren down the
9:54:26
street, you know, they're
9:54:27
rolling the fire trucks.
9:54:30
How busy are you guys
9:54:31
really on a daily basis?
9:54:34
Well, between the training requirements,
9:54:36
the fitness that we need to have the
9:54:40
firefighters do on a daily basis, that's
9:54:44
the basic stuff. They have to eat, they
9:54:46
have to shop and do all the daily things
9:54:49
that you would have to do in your own
9:54:51
home. Make your bed.
9:54:52
You know, bring your stuff out of your
9:54:54
car. You know, it all takes time. And
9:54:56
then the call volume just continues to
9:54:59
grow. And so last year
9:55:02
we ran over 30,000 calls.
9:55:04
Wait a minute, 30,000 calls last year in
9:55:07
the city of West Palm
9:55:08
Beach. That is staggering.
9:55:10
It is. It is. Compared to other
9:55:12
departments in the area, other
9:55:14
departments similar size,
9:55:15
we're a very busy department.
9:55:17
Wow.
9:55:18
With calls. So that's just that's just
9:55:20
the 911 side of the house. We also have
9:55:22
our whole fire prevention bureau, which
9:55:24
is doing outstanding work, keeping pace
9:55:27
with all of the the new construction.
9:55:29
Sure. Well, let's talk a little bit about
9:55:31
that. What what happens? What are what
9:55:33
are the components of the fire prevention
9:55:36
program that you're talking about?
9:55:37
Well, one of the things they do is I say
9:55:39
a developer wants to build a project, a
9:55:42
strip mall or a
9:55:43
grocery store or whatever.
9:55:45
So when those plans come to the city, the
9:55:48
fire marshal's office is involved from
9:55:50
the very beginning, looking at the plans,
9:55:53
making sure there's adequate water
9:55:54
supply, that the sprinklers are the
9:55:56
sprinkler systems are there, smoke
9:55:58
detectors, all of those things.
9:56:00
Before the first shovel goes in the
9:56:03
ground, our bureau has been involved, you
9:56:07
know, months, if not years prior.
9:56:09
Wow. So and actually, that drives with
9:56:11
some of the things that we've been
9:56:12
talking about another on other episodes,
9:56:14
that the process of actually building a
9:56:16
building, you know, a development here in
9:56:18
city of West Palm Beach
9:56:19
doesn't happen overnight.
9:56:21
It's a very long protracted process. And
9:56:23
it's actually gratifying to hear that
9:56:25
that you are a part of that process as
9:56:27
far as making sure that public safety is
9:56:30
in the forefront in the development.
9:56:32
Absolutely. You have lives at risk and
9:56:35
you want to make sure the buildings are,
9:56:37
you know, as fire resistant as they can
9:56:39
be. Sprinkler protected with the new
9:56:42
construction, that they have adequate
9:56:44
widths of doorways so that
9:56:46
people do have to evacuate.
9:56:47
And that's where enough people can get
9:56:48
out. Yeah. But that's in addition to what
9:56:51
they're doing, just in regular fire
9:56:53
inspections. So any business, any
9:56:56
occupancy has to have a fire inspection.
9:56:58
So in the meantime, they're also going to
9:57:00
restaurants and little mom and pop
9:57:02
grocery stores and making sure that the
9:57:05
community's safe in
9:57:06
those other areas as well.
9:57:07
So you guys, the upshot is you guys are
9:57:09
really busy. Oh, got a lot going on. Wow.
9:57:12
You mentioned training, that there is a
9:57:14
constant level of training.
9:57:15
And I think that's something that people
9:57:18
don't realize is that once you go through
9:57:21
the first initial training to become a
9:57:23
firefighter, the education doesn't end.
9:57:26
It continues on fitness and health and
9:57:29
well-being. Let's talk a little bit about
9:57:31
that. What happens? What kind of programs
9:57:34
do you have for firefighters as far as
9:57:36
both physical and psychological health?
9:57:40
So we have a program that's now funded,
9:57:42
we initially got it through a grant. Now
9:57:44
it's funded through our city's health
9:57:46
insurance and we have two trainers. One
9:57:50
is focused on our physical health and the
9:57:52
other one is, he's a performance, mental
9:57:55
performance specialist.
9:57:57
So people can make appointments with them
9:57:59
and to overcome some challenges they may
9:58:01
be having, not like a therapist, but
9:58:05
helps you overcome yourself in the sense
9:58:08
of, what are my barriers?
9:58:10
Why am I not working out?
9:58:11
Why am I not eating right or whatever
9:58:14
those are? So that's the mental component
9:58:16
side. The physical component is we've got
9:58:19
gyms in every fire station and the crews
9:58:23
a lot of times now, it's not just about
9:58:25
getting on the cardio bike or
9:58:27
the treadmill. They do cross training
9:58:30
workouts so they're working their whole
9:58:31
body and they really dedicate a lot of
9:58:33
time to it and take it serious. And I
9:58:36
would say we're one of the fittest
9:58:38
departments in the county.
9:58:39
With all that, one of the things that you
9:58:44
and I talked about prior to starting the
9:58:45
show was a very important function of
9:58:48
health and wellness within the fire
9:58:49
department, which I did not know about at
9:58:52
all, which was awareness and cancer
9:58:54
prevention and treatment. Why is that
9:58:57
important in firefighting?
9:58:59
So years ago, we didn't really know what
9:59:04
caused cancer. And as cancer has
9:59:07
developed and become more prevalent just
9:59:10
in the general population, it's seen a
9:59:13
real increase in firefighters. So what we
9:59:17
have identified, we
9:59:18
know now what's causing it.
9:59:19
And it's not just the smoke from going
9:59:22
into the fire. We have the prevention
9:59:25
methods for it. We have the air mask that
9:59:27
the firefighters put on their face. So
9:59:29
that protects their respiratory system.
9:59:32
But for years, we weren't washing our
9:59:34
gear. You washed it when it kind of got a
9:59:37
little gamey and your friends were
9:59:39
saying, "Hey man,
9:59:41
time to wash that stuff."
9:59:42
And those tells the story. Right. So now
9:59:45
we've got extractors, big washing
9:59:48
machines, and most of the fire stations,
9:59:50
I think too, don't have it yet. But it's
9:59:52
just because of plumbing issues. But
9:59:55
we've got second sets of gear for
9:59:58
everybody so that when they do go to a
9:59:59
fire and they've got all these
10:00:00
carcinogens on their gear, they can take
10:00:03
it, swap it out and get into some fresh
10:00:05
stuff and get that washed.
10:00:07
We've got contracts with a vendor that if
10:00:09
it's very contaminated, they'll
10:00:11
professionally clean it. We've got now,
10:00:14
they almost look like a giant dishwasher
10:00:16
where you can put your air pack and your
10:00:18
helmet and your boots inside it. And so
10:00:21
it washes all the things that we couldn't
10:00:23
put in the washing machine. Right.
10:00:26
We bring the blood mobile to the fire
10:00:29
station so that the firefighters can
10:00:31
donate blood because if there's PFAS and
10:00:33
you've heard those terms of PFOAs, it's
10:00:36
just forever chemicals. We
10:00:38
give them an opportunity.
10:00:40
"Hey, we're going to make it convenient
10:00:41
for you. Donate blood." And because you
10:00:43
can get it out of your system. So we've
10:00:46
taken an enormous amount of measures
10:00:49
because although the state of Florida has
10:00:52
presumptive cancer benefits for 21
10:00:56
cancers, we don't want to get cancer
10:01:00
because all the benefits in the world
10:01:02
don't really mean
10:01:03
anything if you're sick. Right.
10:01:07
So we want to prevent them from getting
10:01:08
sick in the first place.
10:01:09
So amazing, amazing preventative steps,
10:01:13
cleaning equipment, making sure that
10:01:15
every opportunity to avoid carcinogens
10:01:18
taking place. That's smart. One of the
10:01:20
things that that came to me when you were
10:01:22
talking about some of the situations that
10:01:25
your firefighters find themselves in as
10:01:28
far as danger is concerned, I can imagine
10:01:30
that they're, they have to
10:01:31
deal with a lot of trauma.
10:01:33
Psychological trauma, seeing some of the
10:01:36
things that they have to see as part of
10:01:37
their duty. How do you deal with that?
10:01:40
That's another emerging field that we
10:01:42
have embraced and that's the peer support
10:01:46
team. So we have some trained
10:01:49
firefighters that will conduct a
10:01:52
debriefing after a tragedy. Picture
10:01:55
something horrific like a child drowning
10:01:57
or really anything to do
10:02:01
with children or some scene.
10:02:03
Where it's just horrific. Because for
10:02:06
many, many years, people just went home.
10:02:09
People went home to shift and they're,
10:02:10
they're, you know, tried to maybe talk to
10:02:13
their spouse about it. Maybe they don't.
10:02:14
Some of them probably just bottle it up.
10:02:15
Bottle it up and just move on. So now we
10:02:19
have these little debriefings and we have
10:02:21
firefighters that they can talk to that
10:02:23
are trained. They're not clinicians, you
10:02:26
know, they're not mental health
10:02:27
providers, but it's an ear, a friendly
10:02:29
person who, who will be a
10:02:31
shoulder to cry on if needed.
10:02:32
Or to listen or just to
10:02:35
have a cup of coffee with.
10:02:36
It's important. So it sounds like you're
10:02:39
taking steps to, to prepare the body and
10:02:43
mind to deal with the things that they
10:02:46
could possibly see as part of their, part
10:02:48
of their daily duties, but also have the
10:02:51
programs in place so that once they are
10:02:53
exposed, once they do see those trauma,
10:02:56
those, that trauma, that
10:02:57
they can, they can deal with it.
10:02:59
And that is a long-term step towards a
10:03:02
long-term mental health
10:03:03
and the physical health.
10:03:04
And it's a challenge, right? Because not
10:03:07
everybody wants to be outside in August.
10:03:11
I mean, last two weeks were brutal.
10:03:12
Yeah.
10:03:14
In gear at four o'clock in the afternoon,
10:03:16
when the sun's blazing on the interstate,
10:03:18
you're talking about 120 degrees, 130
10:03:21
degrees in the sun in your gear.
10:03:23
You know, not everybody wants to be in
10:03:27
that type of environment. Not everybody
10:03:29
is cut out to have the mental fortitude
10:03:32
to see that kind of trauma
10:03:34
on a regular basis, you know.
10:03:36
So some people might come into this field
10:03:38
thinking it's one thing.
10:03:39
And it is really so far from that because
10:03:41
we do run a lot of medical calls, you
10:03:44
know, it's not all
10:03:46
fires and, and hero stuff.
10:03:48
There's a lot of going into nursing homes
10:03:50
and taking care of elderly or someone
10:03:52
that fell off a ladder or, you know,
10:03:54
something, something, you know, we had
10:03:57
firefighters that went to Surfside.
10:03:59
We had firefighters
10:04:00
that went to Venezuela.
10:04:01
Wow.
10:04:01
You know, that sign up for these extra
10:04:03
duties that that's what they want to do,
10:04:07
you know, and we have, we
10:04:08
have a good, we have a good team.
10:04:10
Absolutely.
10:04:11
We really do.
10:04:13
Listen, one of the things that we were
10:04:13
talking about is that
10:04:15
West Palm Beach is growing.
10:04:16
We're seeing expansive growth, new
10:04:19
businesses, new, new
10:04:20
residences moving into the area.
10:04:23
Looking forward two years, five years, 10
10:04:27
years into the future, what to you is
10:04:30
more, more important, the, the growth of
10:04:33
staff or the acquisition of equipment to
10:04:36
do, to deal with high rises, to deal with
10:04:39
the new challenges that our growth.
10:04:42
Will bring to the fire department.
10:04:44
I think staff is everything.
10:04:47
Staff is everything because a ladder
10:04:49
truck is only going to reach so high.
10:04:50
Right.
10:04:51
Right.
10:04:52
You take an 18 story building, we're not
10:04:53
getting to the 18th floor
10:04:55
with the ladder truck itself.
10:04:57
You're getting strong firefighters who
10:04:59
are putting those hoses on their
10:05:00
shoulders and they're walking up those
10:05:03
stairs to go deal with
10:05:04
what they have to deal with.
10:05:05
And that's where we need the people.
10:05:08
Right.
10:05:09
That's where we need the firefighters.
10:05:10
We need the engineering controls like the
10:05:13
sprinkler systems and the areas of safe
10:05:15
refuge and the buildings.
10:05:17
We need all of those things, but we need
10:05:19
strong, motivated firefighters that are
10:05:21
willing to walk up those
10:05:23
stairs carrying all that equipment.
10:05:25
And it's, you know, a fully decked out
10:05:27
firefighter with gear.
10:05:28
You're talking about 325 plus pounds.
10:05:30
Oh, that's yeah.
10:05:32
So you're you have to
10:05:34
physical fitness is paramount.
10:05:37
It is to see your staff.
10:05:38
When I was a young firefighter,
10:05:40
firefighters died of heart attacks.
10:05:43
Well, back then they smoked. They didn't
10:05:45
take care of
10:05:45
themselves. They ate terrible.
10:05:48
And they didn't live
10:05:49
long enough to get cancer.
10:05:51
You know, they it was
10:05:52
in their 50s and 60s.
10:05:54
They're having major heart disease.
10:05:56
They lived five, six, seven years into
10:05:58
retirement and that was it.
10:05:59
Wow.
10:06:00
So we've come a long, long way, but we
10:06:04
still have room to improve.
10:06:07
Absolutely.
10:06:08
You know, and it looks like you've you've
10:06:11
acknowledged that need for really take
10:06:15
you know, we talk we talk about taking
10:06:16
care of our equipment and keeping things
10:06:18
shiny, keeping things operating and the
10:06:21
focus on staff and making sure that they
10:06:23
are taken care of that they are both as
10:06:27
fit as possible, both physically and
10:06:29
mentally makes your staff
10:06:31
more efficient and happier.
10:06:35
And what they do.
10:06:35
Yeah. And there's been different times
10:06:37
throughout throughout the years through
10:06:39
different budgetary times that the fire
10:06:43
trucks were not new and
10:06:47
efficient and dependable. Right.
10:06:50
Right.
10:06:52
This administration has done an
10:06:53
outstanding job of buying equipment. The
10:06:56
apparatus replacement has been fantastic.
10:06:59
So when you have a relatively newer
10:07:01
fleet, you have less maintenance problems
10:07:04
and the firefighters have more confidence
10:07:06
in what they're using.
10:07:07
So if we have a dependable truck, we've
10:07:10
got people that are ready to go. They're
10:07:13
trained. I mean, to the point of
10:07:15
training, we're going to be building the
10:07:17
training facility out west off of
10:07:18
Haverhill and Roebuck.
10:07:20
So the plans are being developed. We have
10:07:22
a team that's working on
10:07:23
building the training facility.
10:07:25
So we'll be able to to grow our training
10:07:30
even more once we have that
10:07:32
brick and mortar facility.
10:07:35
People are always worried about tropical
10:07:37
storms and those types of emergencies.
10:07:40
I think people associate what you do
10:07:44
mostly with rescues
10:07:46
and burning buildings.
10:07:47
But you guys play a very, very important
10:07:49
role in tropical storms and
10:07:50
hurricanes. Right. Absolutely.
10:07:52
I mean, we're we're on duty. We're on
10:07:55
duty. And we do a lot of preparation on
10:07:57
the front end. And, you know, my my best
10:08:00
piece of advice to people is you need to
10:08:02
know where you what your zone is.
10:08:04
If you're in the harm's way of
10:08:07
floodwaters or strong winds and officials
10:08:10
are telling you to evacuate, you look at
10:08:12
what's happened in some of these
10:08:14
different hurricanes
10:08:14
like Ian and Katrina.
10:08:16
And I mean, this week is the anniversary
10:08:19
of Hurricane Andrew. That's right. You
10:08:21
know, it's been what, 32 years, 34 years
10:08:24
since Hurricane Andrew.
10:08:25
Yeah. And I remember that storm and I
10:08:28
remember it was a category five plus.
10:08:30
Yeah. But we have to
10:08:32
heed what the officials say.
10:08:33
And so what the public needs to know
10:08:35
about that is part of the reason is if
10:08:38
you're told to evacuate and you don't.
10:08:42
There is a time where the fire department
10:08:43
and the police department shut down
10:08:45
operations because our frontline
10:08:49
personnel can't go out
10:08:51
in that weather. Right.
10:08:52
You know, so you're kind of I mean,
10:08:56
several governors have
10:08:57
said it. You're on your own.
10:09:00
So we would have to wait till the winds
10:09:02
die down to safe enough. I mean, to go
10:09:06
out and make a rescue. And
10:09:08
we've done that during Dorian.
10:09:10
Right. And we're fortunate we're we're
10:09:13
having this conversation in summertime of
10:09:15
2026. And we're lucky that this year it
10:09:18
seems that the weather gods are favoring
10:09:21
us and making it a less severe season.
10:09:24
Although, as you as we point out, they
10:09:26
only need one storm. But it is true.
10:09:29
Yeah. But I think it's important for
10:09:31
people to realize that if when the storm
10:09:33
is actually here, you guys are locked
10:09:36
down for your own safety to make sure
10:09:38
you're ready to go when
10:09:39
the storm starts to ease.
10:09:41
So making the decision of whether to
10:09:44
evacuate or to shelter in place or
10:09:46
shelter in a shelter are things that need
10:09:49
to happen before the
10:09:50
storm actually arrives.
10:09:50
Sure. We should be talking about that
10:09:52
with our families in January. That's
10:09:54
right. You know, let's make sure we have
10:09:55
everybody's numbers somewhere. Let's make
10:09:57
sure that we have thought through this.
10:10:00
We have a lot of people that have moved
10:10:01
to our area that have never been through
10:10:03
this before. They they have not
10:10:05
experienced a hurricane. They they
10:10:08
haven't experienced the three and four
10:10:10
days in a week after
10:10:12
when there's no power.
10:10:13
Oh, that's the challenging time. Yeah. I
10:10:16
know that you've experienced that. I've
10:10:18
experienced that. It's not not very fun.
10:10:21
Right. But so those contingencies are
10:10:23
what the public needs to
10:10:24
think about now. Right.
10:10:25
During the blue sky, what they call blue
10:10:27
sky day. Let's talk about that now.
10:10:32
You've had a wide range of experience
10:10:34
over your career. You've done a lot of
10:10:36
different things. You've been
10:10:37
in a lot of different places.
10:10:39
Experience is starting from when you were
10:10:40
a child all the way to now. If you had
10:10:43
the opportunity as the person you are
10:10:45
right now to send a message back to who
10:10:47
you were when you were a young a young
10:10:50
person, what would that message be?
10:10:55
What was it that they told Forrest Gump
10:11:00
in the movie Invest in Apple?
10:11:04
Yeah, good call. Yeah. But in all
10:11:07
seriousness, I really don't have a lot
10:11:09
that I would would change, you know, but
10:11:12
that's what I think. That's great. I
10:11:14
think, you know,
10:11:16
looking back, just be patient.
10:11:19
Just be patient because it's all going to
10:11:21
come. That is a wonderful, wonderful
10:11:26
approach. I wish we could share that with
10:11:27
every young person that we run into. If
10:11:30
you had an opportunity, and actually you
10:11:32
do right now, to send a message to our
10:11:35
listeners, to the residents of West Palm
10:11:36
Beach about your department, about what
10:11:38
you're doing. What would it be?
10:11:40
The West Palm Beach Fire Department is
10:11:42
here for you, you know. While we don't
10:11:46
want you to have a medical emergency, we
10:11:48
don't want you to get into a car
10:11:50
accident, we certainly don't want to, you
10:11:52
know, you to have your house
10:11:53
catch on fire. We're coming.
10:11:56
And we're coming with well-trained,
10:11:58
strong firefighters who are compassionate
10:12:02
and willing to do what's
10:12:03
necessary to save lives.
10:12:05
Chief, it goes out saying the performance
10:12:07
of your department and what you've done
10:12:08
personally is head and shoulders and top
10:12:13
flight. And we thank you for everything
10:12:15
that your department does, and we wish
10:12:16
you the very best going forward.
10:12:18
Very good. Thank you, Jeff.
10:12:20
And thank you for joining us and watching
10:12:22
this important conversation. As a reward
10:12:25
for staying with us until now, we have
10:12:26
something very special for those who are
10:12:28
watching our video episode.
10:12:30
Take a look. These are photos through the
10:12:32
years of the West Palm Beach Fire
10:12:34
Department, and that old fire station
10:12:36
from the 1920s, that's still standing.
10:12:39
Thanks again to all firefighters, young
10:12:41
and old, who have served our city. And
10:12:43
that's all for Inside West Palm Beach.
10:12:46
I'm Jerry Marcello.
10:12:47
We'll see you next time.