For safety and training's sake

By Laura Johnson | Alex City Outlook

Published Thursday, December 3, 2009

Motorists on Tallapoosa Street might have noticed a cloud of black smoke rising from a burning home on nearby Coley Street Thursday and Alexander City residents are likely to see a lot more of them in the coming months.

However, there is no need to worry.

That’s because the city is beginning the second round of its annual dilapidated structure program this month. Through the program, the building department determines which structures should be condemned, and the fire department destroys them by fire.

The program benefits the city in two ways. It helps destroy the unsafe or unsightly structures at a reduced cost and it provides training for the city’s public safety employees.

“We utilize these structures to do training inside them,” said Alexander City Fire Chief Kem Jones. “They see a lot of things in this training that helps them adjust to similar situations in an actual fire.”

At Thursday’s fire two rookie firefighters, a newly appointed lieutenant and a pump operator were trained while they and a 13-member team of other firefighters fought the fire that overtook a cinder-block home in the 800 block of Coley Street.

“We’re training on two critical positions,” ACFD Capt. Wayne Windsor said at the scene. “We have to have them trained before we go in service.”

Before the dilapidated structures are destroyed, the Alexander City Police Department’s Special Response Group (SRG), which operates like a S.W.A.T. team, uses them to train for hostage situations.

“We use the homes to train on how to breach doors and search rooms and attics with specialized equipment,” Lt. Tommy Lovett said. “It basically just helps us train to get used to rooms and crawl spaces in different types of homes.”

The city uses state codes to choose which structure should be destroyed. If 60 percent of a building or home is ruined, the city usually issues condemnation notices to owners.

Those owners are then given a chance to repair the structures. If they do not, state law permits city officials to move forward with the demolition process.

“If you can tell that it has been infested with termites or that the roof is caving in, it’s probably going to be condemned,” said code enforcement officer Steve Morgan.

Debris from the Coley Street blaze and the others that take place this winter will likely remain on the ground until the spring because the city street department only clears it in May and November.

“It works better to do it that way,” city engineer Gerard Brewer said of the clean-up schedule. “If you don’t do it that way you don’t have a start and stop.”

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