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Flood loss has silver lining for town
Posted: Monday, Dec 17, 2007 - 08:28:45 am CST
by Margaret Palermo - Staff writer
 | | NEW FIRE TRUCK - Cline Speer (left) and Reagan Wells Fire Chief Gerry Moore shake hands as Speer delivers a new fire truck to the Reagan Wells Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department. Speer, owner of Pairadice Trucking, picked the truck up from the Berwick Volunteer Fire Department in Louisiana and brought it back at no cost to the department. (Photo courtesy of Reagan Wells Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department)
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Though it's hard to believe that three near-drownings and a waterlogged fire truck could be a blessing in disguise, that is what has happened for the Reagan Wells Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department.
Started in May 2006 with little more in the way of assets than a strong desire to help their neighbors, members of the department held fundraisers and dug into their own pockets to purchase a fire truck they could afford. Losing that truck July 21 during flooding while trying to perform a rescue was a huge blow to the department.
But word of the disaster got out via a representative of KIMCO Services in Lake Jackson, La.
Roy Kimmel had just been out here and services our equipment, said Reagan Wells Fire Chief Gerry Moore in an interview Friday morning. Moore explained that Kimmel's business is servicing self-contained breathing apparatus for fire departments throughout the Southwest.
He heard about us losing the truck and contacted me and wanted to know how bad it was, Moore said. It just so happened that he went that month, in August, to the Louisiana State Fire Convention. At the fire convention, he told several people he knew what had happened with our truck.
Firefighters at the convention started comparing notes to see who might have an old truck or equipment available that might be donated.
Chief Joe Thompson of Olla, La., contacted me and said he had an old truck and ambulance that were not being used and asked if we would like to have them, said Moore. The 1984 Chevrolet ambulance had been converted to a service truck to carry firefighting equipment. Moore said it would continue to be used that way.
Gary Curry and I went up there and met with him and Mayor Wanda Love and they signed paperwork and we drove the ambulance back, he said. Along with the ambulance, he gave us a bunch of equipment – radio equipment, rescue lights odds and ends of equipment we didn't have, a bunch of training manuals.
But that wasn't the end of the department's good fortune.
Chief Francis Fromenthal of Berwick, La., called and said he had an old fire truck that was in really good shape and said he didn't need it anymore, so he got city council to donate it, said Moore.
He said the Berwick City Council approved the donation of the 1975 Ford pumper truck to Reagan Wells in October.
I couldn't go down there right at that time, so I sent Assistant Chief Scott Powell and Dick Peterson, president of the fire department, and they met with Chief Fromenthal and the mayor, Louis Ratcliff, and his assistant chief, Heath Landry.
They looked the truck over, talked to them and accepted it, then we started trying to make arrangements to have it transported for us, Moore continued.
It just so happened that Cline Speer, who is the owner of Pairadice Trucking here in Uvalde, was in 4-H in high school under former county Extension agent Kenneth White. He heard about our situation and called Kenneth and said, 'I want to do something for you. I'll go pick that truck up for you.' He went down and picked it up and brought it back, said Moore.
He said the department offered to pay for the gas for the trip, but Speer refused.
When the truck arrived at the department, Moore said he went to help with unloading and he ran into Bill Haynes of Haynes Metal & Vinyl Creations. He said I make signs. Want me to do a sign for that truck?
Haynes donated magnetic signs for the truck and the ambulance.
The big truck was almost ready to go to work when it got here, said Moore, who said the pumper weighs 23,000 pounds and is 23 feet long. We just had to get the state license and inspection sticker.
The truck was already equipped with ladder, hoses, nozzles, breathing apparatus and a portable pump to pump water out of the river. They even gave us boots and helmets, he said.
With the new equipment, Reagan Wells Fire and Rescue Department is ready to tackle almost anything that comes up. During rains and storms, we're isolated because of all the river crossings, Moore said. We have the area all the way up [U.S. Highway] 83 past Leakey on the west side. We want satellite stations throughout our district. We're not going to get locked in there.
He recalled the number of swift water rescues that took place over the summer due to heavy rains. When the river's up like that, some of my guys can't get out. We have to use what's available, he said. With more trucks, equipment can be stationed at different sites so if one truck can't respond, another can.
The people of Uvalde and Uvalde County have been very supportive, said Moore.
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