Fire Grant winners

[thoskin]

Question:
How many depts that received a FEMA Grant in TN actually were notified by their Congressman or other Gov't official prior to the announcement on Firehouse? Our Rep is concerned with COPS Grants and Community Development type Grants, but doesn't seem too concerned with the underfunded fire departments. How is it in the rest of the VOLUNTEER state ?
It was a loooong wait after the 5 questions for no calls from our Congressman.

Stay Safe

[farmun751]

We were announced in Round Three. We didn't receive a call, letter, e-mail or anything from an elected official anywhere.

I discovered that we received the grant from the FireHouse.com website. And as I was reviewing the list, I started receiving calls from other people that also saw us listed as a winner.

I actually got a call from Emmitsburg, from a neighboring Chief who was attending a training course. He seemed to be as happy about our grant as we were.

The State Fire Marshall's office sent us a letter about a month after the announcement telling us that since we received a grant, we must report our incidents to NFIRS.

I have been really disappointed in our elected officials as far as this goes. This seems big to us, but it may be small potatoes to them. But, we got the money anyway, and have gotten almost all the equipment we ordered. SCBAs, LDH, New PPE, and pagers.

[ullrichk]

I got a heads-up from a colleague in MO who said that the next round winners were available on his congressman's website in the press releases section.

I looked around at TN congressional websites and found my dept. listed several days before the official announcement (which came two days or so before the official FEMA announcement).