Posted on 08/28/2007 3:36:31 PM PDT by neverdem
More than a week after two New York City firefighters died in a smoky fire at the former Deutsche Bank building, city officials relieved three senior fire officers of their posts yesterday, asserting they had failed to inspect the building or to draw up a specific plan on how to fight a fire inside the contaminated tower.
At a City Hall news conference yesterday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said the local firehouse had not performed any of the required inspections of the building on the edge of ground zero since 2006, even though the 41-story building, damaged in the Sept. 11 attack, was undergoing a complex demolition.
The mayor further announced that a division commander, Deputy Chief Richard Fuerch, had decided against drawing up a site-specific firefighting plan, despite repeated recommendations that one be written, including one sent to him in 2005 by a battalion chief.
The mayor noted that fire officials had been in the building in the last year and undoubtedly saw the challenges and potential dangers as the high-rise was simultaneously decontaminated and dismantled floor by floor.
In addition to Deputy Chief Fuerch, 55, who is the Division 1 commander, the men relieved of their commands are Battalion Chief John McDonald, 52, the commander of Battalion 1, and Capt. Peter Bosco, 48, of Engine Company 10, the company responsible for conducting the inspections.
“We have many questions,” saidthe mayor, who praised the operational response to the fire itself but called the department’s miscues inexcusable. “Unfortunately, we don’t have all the answers. But we will not stop until we get them.”
Among the toughest questions, the mayor said, are: “Why didn’t the F.D.N.Y. know about all of the conditions in the building? Why were they going in blind, for all intents and purposes?”
In addition to the reassignments...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Bloomberg found some scapegoats, but the real culprits in the tragedy are himself and other political weenies who allowed the environmental nazis to prevent timely demolition of this dangerous eyesore.
As an aside, I wonder how the anti-Guliani Fire department union honcho are going to pin this on Guliani? Or is this Bushs' fault? I forget.
The firemen were from Ladder 5, weren’t they? The chief who was demoted wasn’t from his house. I heard the firemen’s chief speak at the funeral in Bay Ridge, he was Irish...McMillan, or something like that, not the chief that was demoted.
I wonder why they demoted a fire chief that wasn’t assigned to Graffagnino and Bedia’s firehouse?
On a sidenote, Joey Graffagnino worked as a teenager at the B & S Pork store in Dyker Heights. We had just bought some delicious cold cuts there, and a few days later that brave fireman was killed (through sheer negligence) and they were talking about him as being “The mayor of Dyker Heights” whom everybody loved. The news interviewing customers and workers at B & S, all saying what a wonderful guy he was.
It was so sad.
Ed
“We have many questions”
Uh, shouldn’t you at least ask before you make a decision to crapcan 3 guys?
i bet most of the freepers don’t know what happened...
these guys will all be allowed to retire with their nice pensions and their lifetime benefits. they will all do it quietly in the next year. then they will be hired as consultants by the FDNY.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.