Canadian firetruck responding to U.S. call held up at border

[RamboLiberal]

Source: CNN

A Canadian firetruck responding with lights and sirens to a weekend fire in Rouses Point, New York, was stopped at the U.S. border for about eight minutes, U.S. border officials said Tuesday.

Fire officials battling the blaze called for help from fire departments in nearby Quebec, using a longstanding and often-used mutual aid agreement. But the first truck that arrived at the small Rouses Point border crossing was delayed as officials checked documentation of the firefighters and their truck, officials confirmed.

Two other trucks that arrived at the crossing next were cleared in less then two minutes each, a time that one fire official said was still too long considering the situation.

"It's embarrassing," said Chris Trombley, chief of the Champlain Volunteer Fire Department and deputy fire coordinator for Clinton County Emergency Services. "We're calling for help from another country and the first roadblock they hit is at our border."



Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/14/border.firetruck/index.html

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Idiots at the border. How dare those terrorist Canadian firefighters!

[sakabatou]

1. ::sigh::

Stupid, stupid, stupid... :banghead:

[MNDemNY]

2. I feel safer knowing this.

[AnneD]

3. Proof once again.....

that common sense is not that common.

[hedgehog]

4. It's typical of what's happening all along the US Canadian border.

We've lived for years as tolerant neighbors. I think the Canadians view us as the family down the street with the drunken brother-in-law who shows up to disturb the peace from time to time. There are a lot of people with friends and family members on both sides. FOr years the border has been a minor curiosity, not much more. People cross back and forth to work, shop, drink or gamble depending on the differences in the various laws in various jurisdictions.

Now the Bushies are turning the border into something out of a movie set in Cold War Europe!

[Heywood J]

9. Something like that.

I think the Canadians view us as the family down the street with the drunken brother-in-law who shows up to disturb the peace from time to time.

Something like that. Drunken brother-in-law seems to be staying for quite a while, though, to the detriment of the family.

Crossing the border used to be as simple as "anything to declare?" They were more interested in collecting taxes and duty, or making sure you weren't smuggling in illegals. Fifty years of cold-war and the threat of Soviet or Soviet-bloc saboteurs and spies was apparently less threatening than a handful of idiots with boxcutters.

[Benhurst]

5. Good! Those damn Canadians just want to sneak in here and get their hands on our greenbacks

and take advantage of our superior health care. If I were a Canadian, I'd be trying to sneak in here, too. After all, we are THE WORLD'S ONLY SUPERPOWER.

:patriot:
And this be our motto, "Root, hog or die!"

[aquart]

16. Not according to the BBC.

Yesterday I clearly heard "two superpowers." They were referring to the US and China. Let's see. Richard Nixon gave us China and our current healthcare system and Ford gave him a pardon. Hope they're keeping each other company in hell.

[liberal N proud]

6. Canadian terrorist firefighters

Shows just how stupid we have become in this country to allow the government to incite such fear into us that we are afraid of our own neighbors.

[Thor_MN]

25. Just saw 4 F-16's heading north out of Minneapolis

Probably going to do a pre-emptive bombing on a Canadian Fire Station.

[Exultant Democracy]

7. Fire > terrorism when it comes to F-ing up American lives.

Our national set of priorities is fucked and the Pubes are still buying into the "keep us safe" bull shit line.

I don't understand why the pukes even care, terrorist aren't going to bomb Buttcrunch Alabama. They are going to bomb a city full of liberals, abortions and homosexuals when and if they bomb anything at all. And even then we will still have more to fear from getting into our car then terrorism.

[treestar]

39. And they're hardly going to sneak into the U.S. by stealing a

Canadian fire truck and waiting for a fire in a U.S. border town to do it.

[Exultant Democracy]

40. Well now you are just being reasonable.

[SyntaxError]

8. we can't even fight our own fires anymore?

Wow, this is sad... Anyways, what the hell were these border guards thinking?

[hedgehog]

11. Rural areas generally have mutual aid agreements. Come to think of it,

so do some metropolitan areas. Think of it as calling in extra engine comapnies for a three alarm fire.

[SyntaxError]

12. across borders though?

Well, I gusse it would make sense in some locations.

[cali]

15. Sure.

Happens not infrequently on the Vermont border. Some of the cross border towns are more like one town than two.

[arikara]

18. When I worked as a paramedic

we routinely responded across the border for ambulance calls. There aren't enough people in the small American community to maintain emergency services, and we are closest so we do it. In BC there's a couple small American communities that don't connect with the rest of the US by road. Hyder Alaska where road access goes through Stewart BC and Point Roberts Washington where road access is through Tsawwassen.

Its ridiculous that border is stopping emergency vehicles getting to their own citizens in emergencies.

edit: lousy grammar

[mahatmakanejeeves]

36. Alexandria and Arlington, Virginia, certainly have mutual aid.

If you have a multiple-alarm fire, you can units responding from Fairfax County. I'll give you a "for instance." A neighbor had a big house fire back in December 2001. Because I am a member of the Scan-DC online scanner users group, I made sure to record all the units that I saw responding. The fire was in central Alexandria. Here's my report:

Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001
Subject: Big Fire in Alexandria

I didn't need my scanner, because it was right down the street. When I went outside to toss a beer can in the recycling bin at about 4:30 this afternoon, I smelled what I thought was burning tar. Since a nearby house was being added on to, I thought it was part of a roofing job. I turned to see big flames, and I mean BIG flames, rolling out of the second story window of a different house entirely.

I went back inside to call 9-1-1. The men working on the addition must have been the first to call. The dispatcher said that the fire department had already received the call, and I could hear the sirens getting closer.

I ran off to the house, where I saw that the woman and her three young children, two toddlers and one babe in arms, who had been in the house when the fire started were standing safely outside. She was hysterical, and the kids were watching the house. The fire fighters arrived and started smashing windows and putting out flames. I'm sure that, due to the house's location, the flames could be seen from Maryland.

After an hour and a half, it occurred to me that y'all would want to know who was there. Here goes. Equipment numbered in the 200s is from Alexandria. Equipment numbered in the 100s is from Arlington. If no jurisdiction is given, the vehicle was from Alexandria.

Franconia Company 5 (this is in Fairfax County)
Fairfax County Penn Daw 11
Alexandria Paramedic Supervisor
APD (Alexandria Police Department) car 1753
Fire/EMS vehicle 5031
Engine 205
Arlington Truck T-105
Truck 203
Extrication Engine 204
Extrication Engine 207
Truck, no number, made by Pirsch, license 60-742L
Battalion Chief's Chevy Suburban
Medic 202 ALS (Advanced Life Support)
Rescue Engine 206
Medic 207
Bailey's Crossroads VFD Engine 10
Investigations van pulled by an SUV
Arlington Engine 107
Fire-EMS Volunteers minivan
Reserve Engine 297
Reserve Engine 298
Truck 204
Fire EMS Chevy Blazer
Mobile Air & Light
... and I think another EMS vehicle got away before I could get the number.

The city supervisor was there, as several streets were closed. People showed up from blocks away. A local TV station's van arrrived. It was equipped with a PRO-2066,which the cameraman pronounced a "piece of junk." Another TV station showed up too. You can see footage of the fire on Channels 7 and 8 tonight.

Now, four hours after the fire started, some personnel are still on the scene. The contractor who boards up the houses will not be here for another hour. I have heard that one of the children was medevaced to a burn center in DC. That must have been done strictly as a precaution. Any injuries received could only have been minor.

Rescue Engine 206 and Arlington Engine 107 have just been called for a car wreck on I-395. No rest for the weary.

[Carni]

10. But they could let the TB guy in with no problem!

Remember the man that supposedly had ultra infectious TB? (yeah, I know, never mind that the CDC screwed that up too and it ended up he DID NOT have that strain of TB...AFTER they messed up and told him he was free to travel)

But putting previous screw-ups by the bush run orgs aside...so OK, they can let a guy back into the country who is supposedly carrying a killer super disease (even though he's on a list and they see he's on the list) but when a fire truck responds to a fire -- a requested fire truck...they are denied entry?

I honestly don't know where in the F I am living anymore.

Pathetic!

[treestar]

38. Wasn't he a U.S. citizen?

They can't deny entry to a U.S. citizen under any circumstances.

[meegbear]

13. Fire, my Aunt Fannie!

[indypaul]

14. To paraphrase

Mr. Bush, tear down this wall.

[Xipe Totec]

17. Only those close to you can hurt you

and there is nobody closer to us, than us.

[BrklynLiberal]

22. Ahhh. The genius of Pogo!

[Xipe Totec]

31. Indeed

I always look back to the masters for inspiration.

[Submariner]

19. Border Guard is probably a frustrated reject from cop academy

so he flexes his uniformed muscles as Mr. Big preventin' damn terrists from sneaking across Dubya's border. Darn it....doncha understand the neocon mind yet?

[Trillo]

20. More Secrecy! Let those Buildings BURN, baby, BURN...?

In 8 minutes a typical wood-framed home can become completely engulfed in flames, and in 45 minutes it's completely consumed, burned to the ground. Fire travels faster than you would believe.

Such irony: May not enter because of terrorism fears, so let the fire terrorize the community. Burn, baby, burn....

[One_Life_To_Give]

21. One Question. Did the Fire Dept. Call the Border?

Having in the past driving a firetruck thru a toll booth. I expect the border station like the toll booth operators would like a phone call from the fire department informing them of what is happening.

You get notified to expect a couple of emergency vehicals at the checkpoint by someone with a callid of 911. They should be let right thru. But a vehical that comes unannounced with lights and siren would be suspicious I guess. Still 8 minutes is way too long.

[karlrschneider]

24. Good idea. Terists don't use phones.

:eyes:

[One_Life_To_Give]

26. It's the call ID that matters

It's easy enough for the border patrol to verify that it really is the FD Dispatcher making the phone call. Stuff like this should be worked out in advance.

[karlrschneider]

30. It's very easy to spoof caller ID.

:eyes:

[whirlygigspin]

35. Yes, they did

In fact, in some border communities, calls for emergency response are answered at customs, since they are manned 24/7.

This fire was at the Anchorage Inn, a great old place on the lake, really at the heart of Rouses Point.

link to video on page right:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071114/firefighters_071114/20071114?hub=Canada

[HowHasItComeToThis]

23. SPOOKS EVERYWHERE

[Historic NY]

27. Damn Canadian Terrorists.............

lets disguise ourselve as fireman. This administration is turning hundreds of years of cooperative living on the borders upside down. The Canadians came to NY to help out in the ice storms a few years back. Fire in the North Country is a serious matter.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

28. I wonder if this is the same border crossing that let "Chainsaw Guy" into the US

This is almost as bad as when Canada sent some massive waterbombers to Southern California and the public was making noise complaints about them.

[damntexdem]

29. Does this mean that if we fight fires over there ...

then we won't have to fight them over here? LOL!!!

[kitty1]

32. But bomb parts can go undetected thru 19 check points....n/t

[defendandprotect]

33. Nukes flying around the skies --- who checked them out -- where they were going?

[defendandprotect]

34. And, of course, not knowing about the coming 9/11 attack . . . !!!!! ????

[treestar]

37. The idiots working at the border should know about the mutual aid

agreement - if it's existed for a long time, there's no excuse for them not to.