Posted on 10/05/2010 2:32:07 PM PDT by Newton
Firefighters in rural Tennessee let a home burn to the ground last week because the homeowner hadn't paid a $75 fee.
Gene Cranick of Obion County and his family lost all of their possessions in the Sept. 29 fire, along with three dogs and a cat.
"They could have been saved if they had put water on it, but they didn't do it," Cranick told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.
The fire started when the Cranicks' grandson was burning trash near the family home. As it grew out of control, the Cranicks called 911, but the fire department from the nearby city of South Fulton would not respond.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Funny, I’m a believer in PERSONAL RESPONSIBITY.
You have a right to be as stupid as you want to be, but there is a cost that is accessed for that stupidity. This idiot opted to save $75 and risk his $200,000 home. Is there a nicer word than ‘idiot’?
Why are you not asking why the homeowner didn’t write a check to cover a very basic and very cheap service? C’mon we are talking about $75 for the year - in a county that cannot afford to support a Fire Department.
Again, even if they did access $1,000 or even $10,000 for the service - who would ANYONE pay $75 the following year? Wouldn’t eveyrone just take their chances? Meanwhile, what keeps the Fire Department fiscally viable? Good intentions?
This is just like Home Owners Insurance, Earth Quake Insurance, Medical Insurance, or Car Insurance. If you drive your car without insurance and total it - do you then cry and demand that your insurance agent take your $100 check and fix $15,000 worth of damage? Same thing.
They did go to the guy’s house and watched that the fire didn’t spread to neighbor’s house—one who DID pay. That seems to imply that if the neighbor hadn’t paid, they would do nothing to stop the fire from going to that house, too.
Think of this as Car Insurance.
You drive without Car Insurance, Earth Quake Insurance, Home Owner Insurance, Medical Insurance and rake in the savings that everyone else pays for.
Now something bad happens (Earthquake, Burglary, flood, cancer) and you hold up your $100 bill and demand that the insurance company cover your loss.
It’s just that simple.
Hope the dog ran away from his &%@#^& owner and found a new home.
Yup ...
No Pay, no spray.
Again, if they did service this home; NO ONE would pay the $75 the next year (they would all demand the same ‘deal’) and the Fire Department would go bust.
This is exactly like any other form of Insurance you can think of. We all pay in, because the risk is amortizied over every person who buys this service. The person who opts not to pay in - does NOT have the right to wait until they have a car accident, burglary, earthquake, flood, hail or get Cancer then come into the insurance office waving a $100 bill and demanding that the insurance company retroactively cover him.
This idiot took a huge risk, a stupid risk, an inexcuseable risk - and he lost.
The town should have anticipated this situation would come up and voted to make this part of the property tax bill.
Schools, local government, water, sewer, and police coverage usually aren’t voluntary. You either have them or you don’t.
If someone in the neighboring “paid” house had been killed due to the fire spreading, what then? Would the original homeowner be charged with murder because he hadn’t paid his $75, or would the FD/town be at fault for not responding to the original emergency?
Look, I get what you’re saying. Nobody here is going to argue against the personal responsibility issue. But seriously — it’s just wrong that these firefighters would all stand around watching this guy’s home destroyed. And as to the “who would pay next year”, again I say, I would and I believe most everyone would, esp. knowing what the cost after-the-fact would be.
Our town’s FD has an ambulance insurance program, where you can pay 40 or 50 bucks a year and they guarantee no add’l fees for any ambulance trips. Otherwise, as I understand it, that can get ridiculously expensive.
America has become a sick nation encouraged by a greedy government with NO MORALS.What have we become?I can’t believe any firefighter would go along with this in America so a local greedy politician/mob boss could shake down citizens for more cash.
Exactly! And if none of the home owners had paid $75.00 the city would not have responded at all. I don’t understand what is so hard to understand about this. What makes anyone think this idiot would pay whatever it would have cost to save his house if he was billed later? He is a cheap B@s!ard. $1.50 a week and he says NO THANKS!
Yeah.
"Hodar"
I wasn’t there, but I would assume that the Fire Department saturated the ground and the neighboring homes to prevent the spread of the fire. Possibly spraying foam as a heat barrier to protect the neighbors from possible heat damage.
But, this is a poor county. The county cannot afford the Fire Department, this is the ONLY way the local gov’t could provide the service, and that is to charge each homeowner $75/yr for coverage.
It’s exactly like insurance. Consider, if the Fire Department is struggling financially (which I would venture a guess that they are), this situation should certainly get other homeowners to cough up $75 for next year.
Without a cash flow - the entire FD goes away, then everyone’s home turns to ash.
Whadid I tell ya.
And if you knew what you were talking about ect.
I can picture this perfectly...the guy is sitting on the sofa, drinking his beer, watching the tube and howling all the while why he should not pay 75 bucks for fire protection.
Then, when a fire did happen he would dole out whatever they wanted to put it out. Really makes sense.
These are some of the dumbest solutions/comments I have ever seen on FR!Let the family burn for 75 lousy bucks.Is this where we are at?
Wouldnt get beyond prelims in court. Because he had the chance to pay another fire dept for their protection and failed to do so. To bad so sad for him. Three dogs and a cat and he couldnt afford 75 bucks a year? Tell us another story.
I wonder how many attorneys have contacted the homeowner in the past couple of days?
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