WPBFD History

CHAPTER EIGHT A New Prosperity 1946 to 1953 To change and change for the better are two different things. German Proverb

1946 A fire in Atlanta, Georgia, on December 7, 1946, would cause fire departments nationwide to review their tactics and equipment. The fire broke out at 3:00 a.m. on a lower floor of the Winecoff Hotel, considered at the time to be "fireproof." Flames rapidly spread upward by way of the elevator shafts and staircase trapping hundreds of sleeping occupants in their rooms. When the first en- gine arrived fire was showing on three floors and guests were jumping from the windows. Life nets were pre- pared, but jumpers rained down before the nets could be properly placed, seriously endangering firemen. One fire- man was knocked off a ladder by a falling body. The fi- nal death toll was 119. During the 1940s first aid alarms were answered by the assistant chief. Equipment was carried in the back of his car and at night the high pressure engineer would ride with him. Fire crews seldom responded on such alarms, but a private ambulance was dispatched to assist and pro- vide transportation to the hospital. Austin Bennett, high pressure man during that period, recalled the frequency of alarms. ". . . I've seen it go maybe one a week sometimes. Then it would break loose and we'd have seven or eight a day." Frances T. Miller joined the department in 1946 as a private and would rise to the rank of assistant chief be- fore his retirement in 1971. He recalled that "we was on 24 and off 24 when I first went there, [There were] no lieutenants. We went right from driver to captain. . . . we had the old mechanical resuscitator . . . and we took all the training we could. We had a lot of brush fires back then. . . ." Even though the economy was improving, the fire department budget was still limited. Outdated equipment had to be used and new equipment was a long time com- ing. Tactics had not changed much either. Austin Ben- nett recalled the strategy used to put out a fire. "When I first went on we didn't have a 1 1/2 inch line. All we had was 2 1/2 inch and we'd hook up to a pumper . . . and start it out in the front door and wash it out the back." Chief Sadler was for the most part easy going when it came to discipline and following the rules of the department. One thing he was particular about was the rule that prohibited smoking on the apparatus. Austin Bennett recalled one day when his company responded to a brush fire. He had just lit-up a fresh cigar and was re-

luctant to throw it away. Chief Sadler arrived and ob- served the violation, but didn't say a word. Bennett said, "When we got back to the station he [Sadler] called up and he says I want you guys to read rule so and so. So we got it out and we read it; that was no smoking on the equipment. That's all he said." The department came close to losing several fire- men in 1946. North station was working a boat fire when a backdraft explosion turned the boat into a ball of fire. Several firemen suffered burns, the worst of which was Julian Bennett, Austin's brother. When Julian was finally released from the hospital he turned in his equipment and left the profession for good. Sadler would sometimes call a man into his office to discuss a violation of the rules. W. A. Pagan recalled one such time. "[Sadler] let you stand there, and he played solitaire the whole time. Cards were three inches thick from being used so long, and he'd let you stand there for a while. He'd finally say something . . . and reprimand you a little bit and then let you go." The most common type of fire during this era was the brush fire. Austin Bennett recalled, "The hardest things we fought was brush fires." For this reason both North and South Stations had a brush truck in addition to a pumper. The "brush burning truck" assigned to North Station was an old Buick that had once been Chief Sadler's car. It had been refitted with a pneumatic gear pump mounted on the front with a drive shaft, 150 feet of 3/4 inch booster line, and a hundred gallon water tank. Often, when large areas were cleared for construction, a fireman would be assigned to stand-by with the brush truck while trees and brush were burned on the site. 1947 In early 1947 the grand jury suggested that the West Palm Beach City Commission investigate inadequacies in the city's fire protection. Chief Sadler reported that he needed additional manpower, but could not house the new men in the current central station because the overcrowd- ing would not meet health regulations. The chief had been requesting certain improvements for more than twenty years and he took this opportunity to throw the blame back on the city fathers. The chief's annual report back in 1927 had asked for a new central station and a modern fire alarm system. Life was evolving into a more normal pattern with

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