Go, Chief Haggard, Go
If you are traveling on I-24 through Marion County, Tennessee, and your vehicle catches fire you better have a fire extinguisher because the local fire department, led by Fire Chief Eddie Haggard won’t have your back.
And that includes a bus full of U.S. Marines who found out the hard way the other day.
The Marines apparently conducted an orderly retreat as their vehicle was reduced to frames, rails and springs.
The reason for the non-response?
Money, of course.
Last year Chief Haggard conducted a financial review and determined that his volunteer organization can properly afford to protect structures and some roads but not the interstate.
And everyone is up in arms.
Question.
Would any of the “up-in-arms” crowd be doing what they are doing if they weren’t getting paid to do it?
That includes the 911 dispatchers, police officers, state officials and of course, the reporters.
This is truly a “head-up-your-ass moment” and Chief Haggard is there to help us perform an en-masse extraction.
This news just in: it takes money to provide fire protection.
Up to a given point, the more funding, the better the protection.
The inverse is also true: less money, less protection, all the way down to where you have to set priorities and have the brains and guts to say “no.”
Haggard has both.
Deliciously, everyone in the news video sounds so amazed, incredulous even, that the firefighters on the mountain figured out that they needed to make tough decisions, and then did so.
If the state of Tennessee wants I-24 to have basic fire protection they need to fork up some bucks to make it happen or be content to go without.
Fire Chief Eddie Haggard, you are my kind of guy.
