Frederiksted residents saw a red ladder truck with boom extended high above the Ingeborg Nesbitt Clinic Wednesday afternoon, but there was no conflagration in the shuttered clinic—firefighters were just training on their newest big piece of equipment.
Two shiny, red, brand-new massive ladder trucks arrived in the territory in October; one for each district. Now crews need to spend time training with the new heavy equipment to be comfortable, familiar and ready to go in a real emergency, said St. Croix Deputy Fire Chief Angel Torres Sr., who was on scene observing the exercise Wednesday.
“We are training all four shifts on it with weekly exercises,” said Torres. “The goal today was to have the crew bring out the truck, establish a site, stabilize the vehicle, extend the ladder and practice using it as we would if we were rescuing anyone in danger,” he said.
“This ladder has a reach of 85 feet, while our other ladder trucks only reach 24 feet,” said Fire Services Lt. Henry Joseph, who directed the exercise. “For some of the hotels on St. Croix, this may be the only truck able to reach far enough and high enough to rescue people from the upper floors. If we had to rescue someone trapped upstairs at the Frederiksted Hotel, for example, this would be perfect.”
The two trucks were purchased for $1.6 million—$800,000 apiece—with funding from government bonds issued in 2009. A total of $ 2.2 million was allocated for equipment and garages to hold the trucks. When the trucks were unveiled in October, Gov. John deJongh Jr. said both were designed with input from fire chiefs, mechanics and firefighters to meet the unique needs of the territory, including its terrain. The larger ladder trucks anticipate the size of hotels planned for St. Croix in particular, he said.
The ladders were built in Nebraska, while the trucks were built in South Dakota by Rosenbauer America, a major fire equipment manufacturer. From start to finish it took 12 months to build the trucks.
