SAVE DETROIT’S FIREHOUSES AND FIREFIGHTERS!

FROM SHEILA CROWELL  

SHEILA CROWELL

Homeowner, resident, mother, advocate, community leader, a woman whom is afraid of nothing, “except being burned to death”!!!

July 9, 2012

To the City of Detroit Council Members, To All In Lansing Who Represent “OUR FAMILIES in the City of Detroit”:

IMPORTANT Please Read! Please Save our Fire Stations!!

I am writing to each of you and all that you know, asking/begging that you please “Stop the Closing of Our Firehouses.” Decisions such as these are not keeping our families safe in any manner. Without our fighters, our homes and our lives are in more danger everyday.

As many of you know I live in the 48210 Claytown Neighborhood, with 400 or more burned houses. Our hard working “Ladder 22” men run themselves back and forth, not only doing their very best to save our homes and lives, at the same time going to what other areas they are called to help put out another fire. Our firefighters are not a group that picks and chooses a house to save, they save all they can!!

I was at a rally on Friday to save Engine 33. This is the 48209 area, as I stood there chanting to save Engine 33, all I could think of was 48209 will become 48210 in no time at all. Meaning homes will burn one after another, lives will come to an end, many asking why would the City of Detroit make decisions to close a another Fire Station, again putting more lives in “DANGER?”

Think of it like this: How many of you are under stress because you can’t or will not do what is needed for the City of Detroit, so these decisions are “eating at you” day and night? Change places with our firefighters, you are doing your very best to do their jobs as a firefighter, you are so worn thin and under stress from fire stations begin closed one after another, you at that moment in time as a firefighter wasn’t thinking as a firefighter does with each call they make, not only did a building/home burn to the ground, a life/lives came to an end, and how many of our strong firefighters lives had been placed in more danger or died?

How many of the City Council members has ever gone to the families of a firefighter and had to tell them their “Husband, father, brother, sister, granddad” died in a fire saving others lives and homes? Think of it like this, you’re sitting around that table making more decisions and the City building is burning, who would come to your aid, knowing you were the ones to close the doors on the fire stations?

“The Firefighters” would be there to save your lives, not looking at you as a bad guy, taking your hand doing what ever they could to save your lives, think about that!! At the same time, one or two of our neighborhoods are going up in flames, will there be enough stations/firefighters to save everyone’s lives? Who do they have choose? How could you place that on another to have to make that decision??

“Please we are asking/begging to each of you, Stop Closing Our Fire Stations.

I can stand outside of my home with my hose in my hand screaming, crying, choking to death, while trying to spaying water from my hose pipe, but never could I replace a firefighter, “NEVER”…

I was told Ladder 22 is on a temporary days, did you forget the $22.3 million dollar school that was built “across the street from Ladder 22”. Children will fill that school this fall, their lives lay in your hands. Remember the school is just across the street; by the way the DPS doesn’t have its own Fire Department. Dingeman Park was set on fire by a M80 just a few weeks ago, who put the fire out that was heading for our homes on Cecil? No one but “Our Ladder 22”!!

As for you in Lansing:  By passing a bill that fireworks can be sold, brought, and set off, did you think before you held up your hands, saying yes to this bill? Without firefighters to put the fires out, what will happen to Detroit? Homes will go up, people will die, the City of Detroit doors will be closed for ever. I must ask, has a plan been set to get rid of the people in Detroit, no matter what the plans are for the people?