Houston firefighters say they are being forced to use broken equipment while fighting fires in our city and it is endangering lives. Alvin White, the president of the Houston Professional Firefighters Union, made the statement to Channel 2 Investigates on Tuesday. "This is not acceptable. We do not like it,” White said.
A fire truck at station 74 has water leaking from it at about a gallon a minute and requires a hose to be connected when the engine isn’t in use, White said. The engine, which Channel 2 observed leaking, could be out of water when it is needed for a fire if the hose wasn’t connected except during runs, he said.
In another example, firefighters snapped a photo of a 2x4 being used at an angle to keep an overhead radio in place.
A photo given to Channel 2 shows how firefighters used duct tape to fix an air-conditioning problem overhead in a different truck. Tape goes for several feet overhead around air-conditioning vents.
“They had the duct tape around there to hold those vents in place and to cut down on the water condensation from the units,” White said.