WPBFD History

unless the contrary be shown by competent evidence." 1966 Chief Sloan contin- ued the education of the department by taking advantage of Palm Beach County's Adult Institute pro- gram. Some thought that Sloan had gone too far. In 1966 Mr. Cline H. Crane, a Palm Beach High School instructor, was brought in to teach the firemen chemistry. In 1968 he returned to teach a class in phys- ics to forty-five atten- tive firemen, but none of the attendees went on in search of a de-

the freezer, frozen solid with water. This sent Hoffman running for his Maa- lox which he kept in his car, but someone had used a pair of pliers to tighten the cap. Hoffman, who worked on the mez- zanine at Central Sta- tion, often brought his lunch and a pint of milk, which he kept in the crew re- frigerator where noth- ing was ever consid- ered sacred. After finding his milk miss- ing one day Hoffman thought he knew how to keep it from hap- pening again. The next day he put a note on his milk carton

Smoking rising into the sky as units arrived at Tru-Grain.

that read "Don't drink - I spit in it." When he retrieved the carton at lunchtime someone had scrawled on his note, "So did I." Hoffman began receiving crank telephone calls at home in the middle of the night. At one point he went to the telephone company to secure an unlisted phone num- ber. He made sure that no one, under any circumstances, would disclose his new number. The next morning, as he climbed the stairs at Central Station, his secret telephone number was written on the blackboard. Smoke again filled the sky on Monday, November 15, 1965. The fire at Tru-Grain Furniture Company was reported at 4:34 p.m. Units responding to the 920-28th Street address feared the worst as dark clouds rose from the crowded industrial district. Firefighters controlled the blaze quickly and confined damage to the building of ori- gin. Fumes from a large quantity of solvents had been ignited by a short circuit in an electric motor. There was heavy fire damage to the contents and interior of the building. The Florida Legislature passed a bill in 1965 that would benefit firefighters stricken by certain medical problems. The Heart/Lung Bill, as it was commonly re- ferred to, stated that "any condition or impairment of health involving a firefighter that was caused by tubercu- losis, heart disease or hypertension and resulted in total or partial disability or death shall be presumed to have been accidental and to have been suffered in the line of duty

gree. Anyway, it looked good in the newspapers. Civil Defense was another big concern of Chief Sloan. The cold war was at its height and the Cuban mis- sile crisis had taken place only a few years before. The men of the department spent thousands of man-hours each year practicing radiological monitoring in case of nuclear attack. Batteries were dutifully installed in the monitor- ing equipment and the hand held machines were passed over small pieces of radioactive materials. The device would start clicking and a reading would be taken from the meter. Dosimeters had to be calibrated. These were to be worn in the event of an emergency in order to deter- mine the amount of radioactivity the wearer had absorbed. Each fireman was assigned a specific location in the city where he was to report to supervise evacuation in case of nuclear attack. "Right!" a fireman quipped, "We'll meet you on the corner, chief." Downtown West Palm Beach was nearly deserted on Sunday afternoon, July 11, 1966, but crowds began to gather when scaffolding suspended eight floors up on the Harvey Building suddenly tilted precariously with two sandblasters hanging on for their lives. The motor that raised and lowered the scaffolding had shorted out and slack in the supporting lines threatened to topple the plat- form. Only two window air conditioners supported it. Lt. Elmer L. Ballentine and Driver/ Engineer Robert G. Flora responded with the Snorkel articulating boom, but even it couldn't reach the endangered men when fully extended.

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