Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Marine Safety topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Fort Lauderdale marine leaders report busy April and warn of staffing, equipment limits
Summary
Fire-rescue and police marine leaders told the Marine Advisory Board that April rescue activity was high, fireboats are not permanently staffed and both departments rely on grants and county resources to maintain coverage.
At a Fort Lauderdale Marine Advisory Board meeting, fire-rescue and police marine leaders described a busy April for marine responses and detailed limits in staffing and equipment that affect response capacity.
The update matters because the city’s marine and shore-based emergency services respond to water rescues, vehicle-into-water incidents and boating accidents that can be life-or-death and because officials said current staffing and asset-placement decisions constrain response options.
Captain Chad Robertson, Fort Lauderdale Fire-Rescue, told the board that “on the month of April, we ran 7 fire boat calls,” and described incidents including an April 19 call in which “3 were rescued, 1 was missing” and an April 28 vehicle-into-water at Police Landing where a rapid diver located and extricated a victim within “a minute and a half to 2 minutes.” Robertson said fire-rescue continues training and urged board members to tour local fire stations.
Assistant Chief Stuart Ahern, Fort Lauderdale Fire-Rescue, said Fire Station 49 staffs eight personnel and runs three land apparatus (Engine 49, Ladder 49 and Rescue 49). He explained the department does not permanently staff the city’s fireboats and that boats are crewed by personnel drawn from land units. “For us to do these responses … we have to have those land based units available at the station. … We have to have a minimum of 4 people to operate a boat. We prefer 5,” Ahern said, adding that when land units are on other calls the city must rely on Broward County units, which may lack dive capability.
Ahern and Robertson emphasized training and equipment maintenance. Ahern said when the city aggressively staffed boats in 2017 their annual marine call volume rose substantially, to roughly the hundreds, because the boats were more available.
Bill Schultz (Police Department liaison to the board) and Sergeant Travis O’Neil presented policing and marine-enforcement data. Sergeant O’Neil said the police marine unit recorded calls and enforcement activity, and Schultz explained the unit is currently organized as “one supervisor and six officers” with one vacancy. Schultz described the unit’s jurisdiction as extending across the city’s 65 miles of inland waterways and about three miles offshore and noted the unit uses state and county grant funding for overtime enforcement. He said the Broward County enhanced marine law enforcement grant provides roughly $156,000 per year for overtime enforcement.
Mark Wagner, Chief Waterways Officer, newly appointed in the city manager’s office, introduced his role and told the board he is “100% dedicated to the waterways,” and said he will be working on shoreline restoration, construction-site enforcement and streamlining permit and response processes.
Board members and staff discussed the limits that come from current staffing and from equipment age; speakers urged continued capital planning and replacement schedules to keep boats and dive gear operational and NFPA-compliant for marine dive operations.
No formal action to change staffing, shift schedules or purchase boats was taken at the meeting; speakers said those topics will be part of the city’s budget and capital-planning work going forward.
