I am moving to wordpress to make things easier. I apologize in advance if this causes any confusion. But since people are actually reading what I am writing I might as well do it now...
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Let's Look at it This Way...
Here in South Carolina we should be better at math. We have countless opportunities to practice our addition.(catch that pun?) We have churches on every street corner, Lord knows we need them. We have more churches than corners! Tatoo parlors? Oh we have those too-keep counting! Used car lots, repo dealers and liquor stores... They are all there.
Spartanburg is 811 square miles. We have 38 individual fire departments. Sometimes I am sure that to the average Joe it may indeed seem that every Tom, Dick & Harry has their own fire department. Many of these departments have substations in their respective districts. More than one chief has said that we have more jump seats than firefighters! One person was quoted in our local paper saying "that a person couldn't throw a rock without hitting a preacher or a fire chief!"(I've often thought about trying this!)
In the past two years Spartanburg county has had 16 fire fatalities. I have to wonder just how is this possible when it would seem that we are awash in fire engines and tankers? Just how do we get to a point where we loose 16 neighbors to fire? Since the year 2000 we have led our state in the number of fire deaths 4 times.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and National Center for Injury Prevention and Control in the year 2006 alone the state of South Carolina citizens lost 1,654 years of life because of fire.(http://webappa.cdc.gov/cgi-bin/broker.exe)
Let me give you an idea of what this number means. If we took the ages of all those who died because of fire who were under the age of 65 and subtracted the victims age from 65, the number left would be the sum of years lost. Just imagine the impact that number has on familes. Now take that number 1,654 and imagine that loss in terms of economic impact. Jobs lost, tax revenue lost, money not spent on luxury items but spent on health & legal expenses. The list of possible impacts goes on!
Perhaps here in my town we should try something new. Maybe we should consider further investing in multi-lingual prevention materials. Better yet, develop relationships with different cultural and ethnic associations. Reaching out to the churches in our districts. Having coffee with our senior citizens at the local greasy spoons. Working with Meal on Wheels in our communities. The key is finding out who pays our checks and becoming accountable to them. We won't work ourselves out of a job!
Spartanburg is 811 square miles. We have 38 individual fire departments. Sometimes I am sure that to the average Joe it may indeed seem that every Tom, Dick & Harry has their own fire department. Many of these departments have substations in their respective districts. More than one chief has said that we have more jump seats than firefighters! One person was quoted in our local paper saying "that a person couldn't throw a rock without hitting a preacher or a fire chief!"(I've often thought about trying this!)
In the past two years Spartanburg county has had 16 fire fatalities. I have to wonder just how is this possible when it would seem that we are awash in fire engines and tankers? Just how do we get to a point where we loose 16 neighbors to fire? Since the year 2000 we have led our state in the number of fire deaths 4 times.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and National Center for Injury Prevention and Control in the year 2006 alone the state of South Carolina citizens lost 1,654 years of life because of fire.(http://webappa.cdc.gov/cgi-bin/broker.exe)
Let me give you an idea of what this number means. If we took the ages of all those who died because of fire who were under the age of 65 and subtracted the victims age from 65, the number left would be the sum of years lost. Just imagine the impact that number has on familes. Now take that number 1,654 and imagine that loss in terms of economic impact. Jobs lost, tax revenue lost, money not spent on luxury items but spent on health & legal expenses. The list of possible impacts goes on!
Perhaps here in my town we should try something new. Maybe we should consider further investing in multi-lingual prevention materials. Better yet, develop relationships with different cultural and ethnic associations. Reaching out to the churches in our districts. Having coffee with our senior citizens at the local greasy spoons. Working with Meal on Wheels in our communities. The key is finding out who pays our checks and becoming accountable to them. We won't work ourselves out of a job!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
