Hilton-Parma Fire District continues
to operate while repairing home base

Even though they are under a state of emergency and are faced with more than $100,000 in building repairs more than four weeks after the remnants of Hurricane Frances hit the area, members of the Hilton-Parma Fire District never failed to provide service to the residents.

"During the flooding we had equipment stationed on both the north and south side of Salmon Creek," Fire District Chairman John Duggan said. "We had volunteers who took fire trucks and ambulances home with them the night of the flood because our building was full of water."

The fire department headquarters on Route 259 had 12 feet of water in the basement, Duggan said. "The water was 30 inches above the floor level," he said. "None of the fire fighting equipment was damaged because it was all out in service when we got hit with the majority of the flooding."

Mike Lissow, Hilton's fire chief, said the firefighters left the building the day of the flood. Lissow said that some newscasts reported that the department was out of commission. "There was never a time that we couldn't respond to calls," he said. "Once we evacuated the fire department building we immediately set up temporary headquarters at the community center."

Even while the department has suffered the loss of the building and is dealing with the inconvenience of not having a permanent space for dispatching and meetings, it's business as usual, Lissow said. "We can still operate out of the fire house on a limited basis," he said. "The only thing that is up and running right now at the fire house is the dispatch system."

All other areas of the fire house are in the process of being repaired. Duggan said the walls and carpet had to be removed and will have to be replaced because of the possibility of mold and mildew forming inside the sodden walls.

The electricity has been repaired and is becoming operational on a daily basis, Lissow said. "We don't have all the power up yet but each day we are getting more and we should have all our permanent power back on by the end of the week - we hope," he said.

Duggan said the night of the flood, (September 8-9) the siren was set off and wailed for almost 45 minutes before it caught fire and blew up." We had a lot of residents calling 911, wondering what was going on with the siren."

Both Duggan and Lissow said it is thanks to the help of so many individuals and groups that the fire district has made as much progress as it has in the past month. "It's going to be hard to start listing names of who to thank," they said. They plan to try acknowledging the help they've received after the renovations are complete and the firefighters are back in their fire house.