Williston
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Permit #15 Williston,VT 05495 POSTAL CUSTOMER
AUGUST 10, 2023
WILLISTON’S NEWSPAPER SINCE 1985
WWW.WILLISTONOBSERVER.COM
‘You can imagine the fatigue’ Williston fire chief recalls flood rescue operations BY JASON STARR Observer staff
The scene of a swiftwater rescue conducted in Londonderry on July 10. PHOTO COURTESY OF WILLISTON FIRE CHIEF AARON COLLETTE
Williston emerged from the July 10-11 Vermont floods relatively unscathed compared to the disastrous damage experienced in other parts of the state. But the town’s firefighters were still essential in the immediate response to the event. Williston Fire Chief Aaron Collette was deployed to lead an urban search and rescue squad that sped around the state conducting evacuations and rescues of people and pets as the floodwaters crested. He described his experiences in a presentation to the Williston-Richmond Rotary Club last Thursday morning. For two intense days, the team moved more than a dozen people who were trapped by water to higher ground, evacuated others, conducted a missing per-
son search and lost the service of two swiftwater rescue boats — all while going mostly without sleep. “You can imagine the fatigue level,” Collette said.
“We were caught unprepared in Irene. We don’t want to be in that position again.” Aaron Collette Williston Fire Chief
The Williston Fire Department is trained as a unit in car crash rescue, rescue from industrial machinery and ice rescue. It has members that have additional training in swiftwater rescue and urban search and rescue. Collette showed the Rotarians a photo of a rubble pile at the Vermont see FLOOD page 14
Fleet of ambulances increases to three BY JASON STARR Observer staff The Williston Fire Department bumped its fleet of ambulances from two to three this summer. A new Ford model was purchased with $280,000 in borrowing that voters approved at Town Meeting Day in 2022. It arrived, months-delayed by supply chain slowdowns, this June. Rather than replace the fire department’s 2014 year ambulance, the new vehicle will be added to the fleet to create a stable of three, along with a 2019 model. The oldest of the three will only come into service when one of the other two is out for repairs or routine maintenance, said Lt.
Tony Simanskas. The department doesn’t have the personnel to staff three ambulances simultaneously. “These ambulances put a lot of miles on responding to calls, so there are mechanical issues that happen to them, like any vehicle — maybe more just because of the amount that they are travelling down the road. So in the event that does happen, we have a means to put an ambulance in its place while it gets fixed,” Simanskas said. Service on an ambulance often takes longer than a typical vehicle because of the specialized parts it carries, he added. Fire department leadership decided having a spare ambulance has more value to the department than trying to sell the older one or
trade it in, Simanskas said. The new ambulance is the department’s first extended cab model, which means more cargo space behind the driver. Williston’s ambulances are equipped for fire calls, emergency medical situations, active threats and hazardous material response. “All that gear has to be put in the vehicle so this allows us to gain some more space to store it all,” said Simanskas. The extended cab does, however, result in reduced compartment space in the patient area by just under 1 foot, “which is minimal,” Simanskas said. The new ambulance also has better suspension “which will make transports a lot smoother for our patients,” Simanskas said,
Williston Fire Department’s new extended cab ambulance went into service this summer. PHOTO COURTESY OF WILLISTON FIRE DEPARTMENT
as well as a built-in ultraviolet light for disinfecting after transports. The layout is fundamentally the same as the 2019 model, “so if we cross-staff the two ambulances or move them around, each
provider knows where everything is,” Simanskas said. “So far this truck has treated our community really well,” he added. “All of our members are very happy with how it’s laid out and how it drives.”