October 27, 2005

MEMPHIS - It was too late by the time firefighters hosed down a South Memphis home in the early morning of My 28, 1981. The house was already gutted and a 13 year old girl trapped inside died.

The house was across the street from a fire station where a working pumper truck was put out service because of budget problems. News Channel 3 spoke to the girl's aunt at the scene: Do you feel they would have made an effort to rescue her she would be alive today? She replied: "I think she would have had a good chance."

Fast forward to today, the city council is facing another budget crisis. This time to the tune of $26 million. And again, city leaders are looking at the fire department for cuts. This time, possibly merging and closing some stations.

Firefighters' Union President Terry Odum (Oldham) believes safety will be compromised and what happened in 1981 could happen again.

"Station out of service and you have a fire in the area where that station is two to three minutes away, other stations may be four, five, six minutes away," says Odum.

Mayor Willie Herenton says the cuts may be made to help keep the city afloat. "Right now we might have too many stations, we may have too much manpower on certain trucks and we want to evaluate it," says Herenton.

Council members agree cuts are inevitable but have scathing words for the mayor. "If we were a publicly traded company, someone's tail will be hanging up in a noose," says Councilman Jack Sammons Wednesday night. "Now who's accountable, only the public has the ultimate decision but certainly there needs to be some accountability here."

Herenton fires back: "I was very disappointed in his statement, I think it was a lack of understanding on his part."

But for now, firefighters believe then and now they're feeling the brunt of it all. "The morale is down they feel why should we suffer the consequences that was done by somebody downtown."