Catchup, Drought, and Open House

Once again, I have to declare myself remiss in keeping this blog up to date. In the next week or two I plan on catching up to the events in June, posted every few days.

Before I get started, something a little more topical.

Oglethorpe County, and the surrounding counties have now been added to the long list of counties formally in an extreme drought. That now totals 104 Georgia counties (out of 159) placed in that category, and of the rest all but two are at a level more severe than simply "moderate drought".

Athens-Clarke County has imposed level 3 water restrictions - outdoor watering only one day a week depending on even/odd address on Saturday or Sunday, respectively, and only between midnight and 10am. The North Oconee River intake has been shut down for reasons of low river water levels, the Middle Oconee River is next, and after that there's only the Bear Creek Reservoir to supply Athens with water. Here in Oglethorpe County we don't benefit from such bountiful supplies so that means we rely on wells which have their own dangers of drying up.

This drought is just being recognized but has been going on since late 2005, and if you look at the data, it's a part of a pattern that has continued uninterruped except for 2003 and 2005 since 1998. According to UGA's Climatology Research Laboratory, there is no end in sight.

So that means - be careful. Be very careful. Creeks are way down, ACC water supplies are in question, and that means that the water supplies used to fill up Wolfskin VFD fire trucks are in jeopardy. Don't do any outdoor burning. We don't want a South Georgia problem here.

On a more upbeat note was our June 2 Open House. This was a social event, which we hope to make a regular annual affair. Fire Chief Mike Geraci set up his grill and there were drinks and hotdogs for all. The attendance wasn't huge, but there was attendance from 10am until 2pm. It was great to see y'all and thanks for honoring us with your visit. One of the upshots was that we spent two Thursday nights cleaning up the station and getting everything in order, and that's always good.

A few photos from the event, taken by Tom and Gisela Gresham and many thanks to them for documenting the event. June 2 was, incidently, the day that the remnants of Tropical Storm Barry passed over us, making a fine cool day that ended up with an inch or two of much desired rain.

We had all three trucks out - the old knocker, which is used for wildland fire fighting, the lime-green pumper, our workhorse, and the celebrated supertanker, always in demand as a supplier of water.

We always have to fill the drop tanks for an event like this. They hold 2000+ gallons of water, and as you'll see later provide a reservoir for water wars. The Watermaster supertanker is providing the water for this treat, and you can see more about the arrival of the Watermaster here in March of 2006.

Our old pumper, the Margaritaville, which we're hoping to replace in the coming year, offered a convenient spot for rambling. It's a fine truck but has been upgraded and refurbished many times and has accumulated some problems.

Fire Chief Mike Geraci took on the task of explaining nomex hoods and a lot of other stuff to the best and brightest. He reports that he had trouble keeping up with all the questions.

And then he donned his PPE and SCBA to show the best and brightest how it all worked. His audience seemed impressed by the voice amplification capabilities of the BA system, and who wouldn't be?

The Unknown Firefighter put out two wildland firefighting backpack sprayers (that yellow thing). Well he's a scamp and knows exactly what would happen, and naturally water wars ensued. You can tell who was the primary victim - poor David. However he's getting excellent advice from Mrs. Geraci on how to fight back and his brother Paul looks on uneasily. With this mini-training session David is well on his way to being a volunteer firefighter.

This is the plaque that is now mounted on the passenger side of the supertanker. It commemorates the major donations from our Wolfskin Community in 2005 that allowed us to match federal funds for acquiring that marvelous piece of machinery.

And finally, the map of our southwestern part of Oglethorpe County. We're constantly updating these but this one shows with fair accuracy, in purple outlines, where the responsibilities for Wolfskin VFD lie (W).

A fine time was had by all.

--Wayne