EFFINGHAM, SC (WBTW) – One Pee Dee fire department is adding to its resources after learning lessons from past years’ storms. Firefighters in Effingham say they are now ready for the next major flood to hit the area.
“It was such a large-scale event that everybody was strung out,” said Bryan Bennett.
Bennet, the Assistant Fire Chief at Howe Springs Fire Department in Effingham, and his firefighting partners had a tough time during both Hurricane Matthew and the floods of 2015.
“We were called out to do a lot of water rescues and evacuations,” Bennett said. “We had to rely on personal boats or neighboring agencies to provide those services.”
Now, with help from the community, they’ve taken steps to make sure they’re ready the next time a big storm comes to the area.
“We eventually wanted to get into the water rescue element of it and then after those two natural disasters, it pushed us into it a little bit quicker,” Bennett explained.
Bennett said two new rescue boats will make it easier for crews to reach stranded drivers or perform water rescues.
“Two different style boats,” said Bennett. “A smaller, more rapid-response-type boat, and then we have a larger boat; we can escort more people with that and go into larger bodies of water.”
The fireman said the local geography makes having access to a water craft even more important in Effingham.
“We have the Big Pee Dee River and the Lynches River, both of those rivers are pretty busy with recreational boaters and fisherman,” said Bennett.
Bennett said the two boats are not only an asset to fire crews, but because of the generosity of the local community, will cost taxpayers next to nothing to equip.
“A lot of it was from donations,” Bennett recalled. “Some of them were gracious enough to provide a lot of the funding for the technical rescue team.”
He said the next step for his team is rescue diving and water rescue training.
“The technical rescue team, everybody’s gonna get the training, so we’re all cross-trained and so everybody knows what each other’s roles are so we can work better together,” explains Bennett.
