Blown Water Hose Soaks Pa. Fire Station

Sept. 11, 2013
The Jackson Township Volunteer Fire Co. got an unexpected interior wet down over the weekend when an air filter water hose burst.

Sept. 11--The Jackson Township Volunteer Fire Co. plans to have a "wet-down" this Saturday at its Route 715 firehouse in Reeders.

Featuring food, T-shirts on sale and family activities, a wet-down is an event to which a fire company invites the community to see a new fire truck it recently bought.

But, the Jackson Township Fire Co. got another kind of wet-down, this one unexpected and unwelcome, last Saturday morning.

At about 10 a.m., thousands of gallons of water from a clean air filter flooded the firehouse kitchen, the hallway and men's room adjoining the kitchen and a lower-level meeting room and adjoining offices directly below the kitchen.

Lower-level ceiling tiles, computers, files, electronic equipment and furniture were among the items destroyed or damaged.

"The flooding triggered the fire alarm at the firehouse," said firefighter and fire company president Alan "Griz" Gannon, who at the time was on his way home after his overnight county courthouse security shift. "Some of our guys rushed to the firehouse, but didn't see any smoke. Then, one of the guys opened a door and two to three inches of water came gushing out.

"That's when they called me on my radio and said, 'Griz, you might wanna stop by the firehouse on your way home,'" Gannon said. "When I got here, I saw the bay doors open and guys moving stuff from our meeting room and offices outside. I was like, 'What in the world is going on here?'"

The lower-level meeting room "looked like a war zone," with water and soggy ceiling tiles all over chairs, folding tables and the floor, Gannon said. Firefighters traced the flooding to its source in the 61-year-old firehouse building's kitchen and found one of the air filter hoses with a crack in it.

"It looks like the hose had a blowout," Gannon said.

Firefighters removed impacted items, including file cabinets and computers containing various records, a wall-mounted wide-screen TV and a copier with water still sitting in it as of Tuesday, from the flooded areas and then mopped up water.

"The damaged computers affect us, because we do online training and other things on them," Gannon said.

Also damaged were an Instalert radio, predecessor to the modern emergency responder alert system, and shirts in one of the closets adjoining the lower-level meeting room.

Destroyed ceiling tiles and furniture were tossed into a trash bin outside, while possibly salvageable items were placed along the rear and one side of the fire truck bay. The fire company then contacted Paul Davis Emergency Services of Monroe County, a damage cleanup business that provided heavy-duty fans to blow out moisture and dehumidifiers to prevent mold buildup.

An insurance adjuster has since visited the firehouse and will contact the fire company at some point with an estimated cost of damages.

"We're guessing it's in the thousands," Gannon said. "We're hoping our insurance company can cover all of it and we can get the damaged items replaced. Meanwhile, we're gonna keep doing what we've always done, which is serve our community."

Main Headline

If you go

What: Wet-down.

When: Noon Saturday, Sept. 14.

Where: Jackson Township firehouse, Route 715, Reeders.

Why: Gives the community and neighboring fire companies a chance to see Jackson Township's recently purchased $880,000 fire engine, a 38-foot-long 2013 KME Kovatch Predator, seating up to six in the cab and equipped with a water pumper, deck water gun and the Jaws of Life. This replaces two trucks.

Copyright 2013 - Pocono Record, Stroudsburg, Pa.

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