Greetings once again to the Theodore Dawes communities.
The ole saying, “Time sure flies when you’re having fun”, has proven to be true again. This month will mark the one-year anniversary for our Fire Administrator, Ms. Bonita Tanner, and it will also mark my first conversation with the Board of Directors to become your Fire
Chief. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Ms. Tanner for all her hard work and efforts that she puts forth in service to the Fire District, the Fire Department, the Board, and the community. Ms. Tanner works tirelessly to ensure that the business end of our fire service is maintained and in proper order. We have hit some bumps in the road over the last year but thanks to her steadfast efforts, we worked through all of them for the benefit of the District. Anniversaries come and go, some with fanfare and some without. One thing that comes without fanfare is our yearly property taxes. The reason I bring this up is because attached to your annual property tax in the annual fire fee. That fire fee is what funds your Theodore Dawes Fire District also known as your Theodore Dawes Fire Rescue Department.
I am not going to harp on the fire fee, it’s been mentioned in other editions and I’m sure it will come up again down the road.
What I would like to talk about this month are street numbers. Ms. Tanner and I, as part of our yearly duties, must review properties as part of the fire fee process. She receives information from the County Revenue department, and we must review that to ensure fire fees are fairly applied. During the process we have noticed that there are some properties that are not very well identified. We have been finding properties that are numbered so different than what we are given, it’s a wonder the mail carriers can even find folks. In the fire service, time is a critical factor, being able to find you and your property quickly helps decrease our response time to your emergency. Imagine if you will, it’s 3:00 in the morning and you are called to an address for an emergency of some sort. It’s a moonless dark night, you’re on an unlit side road looking for the address of someone having an emergency. If the property owner has not done their due diligence and made sure anyone can see their street number clearly at any time, your emergency responders are now delayed. At that point there is radio chatter with communications asking for a better location, asking for them to call back and have someone step outside to flag us down if possible, all this compounds to further delay our response to your emergency. So, we ask that all property owners do whatever they can to make sure your address/street number can be easily found at any time, day, or night. This small step by the property owners can go a long way in decreasing our response time to emergencies in the community. It could mean the difference between life or death for you or your neighbor. I will close this month with a reminder that we are now under the ADEM burn ban that was spoken of last month. We have already had some in our communities that have had to deal with the sting of an ADEM fine. Respect your neighbors, don’t burn, haul it off, it will be cheaper in the long run.
Thank you all for your continued support of our department and always, stay safe,
Chief Byrd
P.S. Hurricane Season is officially underway, please have a plan and be prepared. Take action TODAY to be better prepared for when the worst happens. Understand your risk from hurricanes and begin pre-season preparations now. Make sure you understand how to interpret forecasts and alerts, and know what to do before, during, and after a storm. An excellent resource for more information on hurricane preparedness is the NOAA site, which can be found here https://tinyurl.com/38mwevam .