Coulee Dam town officials confident of emergency coverage

Following a shakeup in the Coulee Dam Fire Department that came to a head last week, town leaders this week have stated their confidence that citizens are safe and that calls for emergency services will be met.

“In terms of providing protection, we’re safe,” Mayor Greg Wilder said in an interview Wednesday, but there are definitely longterm issues that are being addressed.

Within the last week, Wilder has received three resignations of longtime fire department and ambulance personnel. First, the fire chief, Robert Jackson resigned. Then Ben Alling, a fire department stalwart for nearly four decades, resigned from the fire department during last Wednesday’s town council meeting. The next day, another longtime emergency medical technician, Bonnie Femling, handed in her resignation.

Nevertheless, Wilder said, the town is covered, even if it’s through its mutual aid agreements with other towns and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Grand Coulee’s EMTs already respond to calls in Coulee Dam when necessary. Personnel from the two departments can and do help out on each other’s calls.

“Happens all the time,” Wilder said. “People needing an ambulance are just as safe now as they have ever been.”

Okanogan County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy of Special Operations Mike Worden is in charge of the county’s call center through which Coulee Dam’s 911 calls are dispatched. He said protocols are already in place to call the next agency if the dispatcher gets no response from an agency after several attempts to “tone” their personnel.

In Coulee Dam’s case, such a call would be routed through Grant County’s dispatch center to Grand Coulee’s fire or ambulance service.

Worden hasn’t been aware of a problem with Coulee Dam fire responses, he said, but the town’s emergency medical service is another matter.

“It was difficult to listen to the callers waiting and wondering as to what was taking so long,” he said. So now dispatchers will only allow for two non-responses to tones for the Coulee Dam ambulance before sending the call for Grand Coulee’s service.

“We very rarely have to tone another agency more than once, because they immediately answer,” Worden said. “Coulee Dam has been different.”

Councilmember Shawn Derrick asked Alling during the council meeting whether a fire truck would respond in an emergency. He told Alling he didn’t appreciate his response to “call 911 and see if anybody shows up,” Derrick recalled Wednesday, but he’s not worried.

“The department is obviously more than just Benny,” he said. “I’m not concerned with the level of protection that we have now versus what we had two months ago.”

He noted, however, that Alling had reported that for a fire call to the new school in Coulee Dam Nov. 4, only Alling and one other firefighter responded from Coulee Dam. The rest came from the USBR and Grand Coulee departments.

Town Clerk Stefani Bowden, looking at a roster of fire department members, said she could see names of at least five who are very active on calls.

Wilder said the fire department will meet on Monday in their regularly scheduled meeting and discuss operations and how they will move forward.