Anyone putting off new apparatus due to the economy

[neiowa]

At any rate these calculations are probably low and are still scary to look at.:

You certainly got that right. Discouraging or worse. And then you have NFPA with "junk it" at 25yr standard discouraging rehabs. What you gonna do?

[LaFireEducator]

Things are still very good down here.

Movies are still being shot in this area (29 this year .. at least another 20-25 scheduled for next year), Barksdale AFB is expanding it's mission and the Haynesville Shale has increased natural gas drilling in our area 7x and increased royality and land rights payments by an estimated 25x.

In addition my immediatte area is expecteing the announcement of the placement of a command at Barksdale for Cyber Command with the construction on the support buildings having already started. This will directly affect my fire district.

We had planned to buy a tanker next year but instead we will be annexing another district and taking thier new engine tanker and placing it in one of our stations replacing the tamker (and locating our old tanker at thier station). There is talk about us adding another daytime firefighter but nothing concrete as of yet.

Most of the surrounding fire districts are buying new trucks - one as many as 6 with a bond. One of our mutual aid departments just replaced 5 as thier budget went from 340,000 to 1.3 million in one year due to oil rig revenues. they also added 2 new folks and will be adding a deputy chief next year with 3 new rigs planned on being purchased.

Only place not seeing the boom is Shreveport. they were going to run a 25 recruit academy but cut it to 15, which will not cover retirements in full.

[donethat]

Sounds like you didn't need Gov. Palin from Alaska to get you all that oil revenue!

By the way, what is "Cyber Command" ???

[LaFireEducator]

Cyber Command is the US Air Force's new internet defense system, designed to fight off cyber attacks. Orignally the entire operation was scheduled to be based at Barksdale AFB. However, they are now breaking it up due to pressure from legislators who want a piece of it.

We are still scheduled to get the major command components and the computer hardware based here.

The Haynesville Shale is now being touted as the 3rd largest natural gas deposit in the world. Until a few years ago, the gas was not obtainable becuse it requires horizontal drilling and "fracking" as the gas is actually trapped within the shale. It extends over a 6 parish area in NW Louisiana and slighlty into east Texas.

They expect to be drilling and pulling gas for 20-40 years.

There have been instances of large land owners (200 plus acres) recieving upwards of 1.4 million in royalities (generally 25% of market value) $$$$ in the first year.

It's similiar to the Barnett Shale in the Fort Worth area where companies have been buying up entire city blocks and shopping centers to drill in the city itself

[1OLDTIMER]

10-15-2008:

I wonder if Trenton will be "putting off new apparatus due to the economy?"

TRENTON - As tensions over the proposed demotion of 13 fire captains rose, city officials told the city council last night that the city is facing 69 layoffs to help close a $26 million budget gap

http://cms.firehouse.com/content/art...1&sectionId=46

[firepundit]

Only place not seeing the boom is Shreveport. they were going to run a 25 recruit academy but cut it to 15, which will not cover retirements in full.

Yeah, but they're yankees anyway, right?