The Detroit Fire Department is dangerously close to running out of trucks and engines to respond to fires because the aging, overrun fleet is breaking down faster than mechanics can make repairs
On Sunday afternoon, Larry paced outside while flames spread through four neighboring, vacant houses on the east side.
As Gov. Rick Snyder announces plans today to take over the city’s finances today, the state will be responsible for Detroit’s public safety crisis.
On one of the windiest, iciest nights in Detroit in over a year, the city had just one Public Lighting Department crew overnight to handle countless downed, sparking power lines and fallen street lights spread across 139 square miles.
Now some are questioning whether the victims’ fate would have been different if the closest rigs – Engine 47 and Ladder 30 – weren’t out of service, which has become a grave and growing problem.
As two children lay unconscious from breathing heavy smoke when their west-side house caught fire this morninbg, paramedics never arrived.
Unable to find working hydrants, firefighters dashed through heavy smoke and extreme heat to rescue a lifeless 10-month-girl from her upstairs bedroom early this morning.
Detroiters are being hit by a plan that they know nothing about and are facing a debilitating cut to their public safety system.
Firefighters called for an arson investigator but received the common response: “There are no arson cars available.”
“Oh, God,” Janet Howard said, fearing the spreading flames would devour the entire block of Garland and Canfield, where an arsonist also set a blaze the day before. “Please. Please, God.”