KTAB/KRBC went on a ride along with the chiefs two weeks ago, and they pointed out some potential ‘weak spots’ in rural county neighborhoods. They brought those same concerns before the Taylor County Commissioners Court on Tuesday, January 28, hoping to see changes that could drastically improve rural subdivision fire preparedness.
“Chief Young came in and talked to me a couple of weeks ago about some concerns he had due to the LA fires. And, of course, the time, if you’ve got a leaky roof, is to repair it when the sun is shining, not when it’s raining, right? Well, the same thing happened with fire safety,” said Taylor County Judge Phil Crowley.
Young stated to the Commissioners Court that their concerns could be broken down into 6 Basic points.
1. Subdivision “buffer zones”
“Some type of perimeter access around the outside of the subdivision…If we have a fire approaching a subdivision, we would be able to get our brush trucks in there a lot better and be able to hopefully stave it off before it actually started burning the houses in that subdivision. The first thing it’s going to come up to in most cases is the Cedar fence. We all know how cedar burns.” Young told the Commissioners.
2. Increase access to fire hydrants in subdivisions
“The developers’ willingness to put in fire hydrants when it’s first developed is a real critical role in that.” Said Young.
3. Improve maneuverability of dead-end roads and Cul-de-sacs
“Dead-end roads are a problem. You get back to one, and you’d have no place to feasibly turn around. That really inhibits operations.” Young said.
4. Mandate wider roads in subdivisions
“When there’s a fire approaching a developed area, there’s gonna be people trying to get out as quick as they can, and we’re trying to get in as quick as we can. It really gets congested pretty quick if the roads are pretty narrow.” Stated Young.
5. Mandate more than one entry/exit point in subdivisions
“Ingress and egress. As people are trying to get out, we’re still gonna have room to get in with fire trucks or anything else.” Chief Sowell said.
6. All changes mentioned above could not only improve emergency preparedness but lower homeowner insurance rates
“Many of these will lead directly to the cost of insurance for the cost of insurance for the homeowners once they’ve moved in. If the developer were, for example, to address these problems up front, so they weren’t a problem downstream. Hopefully, the insurance companies would be happy to underwrite those houses at a much lower rate.” Said Young.
“If we can save them any on their homeowner’s insurance, I think that my number one goal is to try to benefit the citizens of Taylor County,” Sowell added.
The chiefs were joined in their presentation by a few relevant field professionals, including Mike Wylie of White Wing Insurance. They stated how some of these changes could positively impact subdivision residents’ homeowner’s insurance rates and eligibility.
“The rates, let’s say on my personal house, would go from like $5,000 with no fire hydrant, but if I had a fire hydrant within a thousand feet, it would drop it down in the two thousand somewhere…If we can get fire hydrants in those subdivisions, then we can get the folks of Taylor County insurance, and we can save them money.” Said Wylie.
Wylie also explains how insurance companies determine whether or not they will insure homes in a given area. Those decisions are based on a public protection code from 1 to 10. One is homes in Abilene city limits, which are well within fire department response times and, therefore, less of a risk. And 10 are homes in rural areas more than five miles from a fire department and might not have quick access to fire hydrants.
“Starting last year in Taylor County, we had about 40% of our insurance companies pull out of Taylor County and say, ‘We will not accept any more policies in Taylor County…So that put us in a bind for finding insurance for people in rural areas.” Wylie told the court.
Judge Crowley and the court members were open and receptive to these concerns. However, they say implementing any future ordinance changes might not be very easy given the restrictions on county governing bodies.
“We’re always happy to have these conversations. One thing that’s tricky is that the County doesn’t have nearly the regulatory power that cities do. We only get specific power from the State Legislature because counties really, at the end of the day, are not independent. We basically just are here to implement the will of the Legislature.” Judge Crowley said.
Those limitations show up in matters such as mandating fire hydrants in subdivision development or specifying how wide/narrow a road is allowed to be. Crowley says some of those allowances depend mainly on any subdivision’s size, location, and ownership.
“I don’t know if, number one, we legally can mandate fire hydrants. Right now, it’s looking like we can’t. But also, my concern about the fire hydrants is, it’d be my assumption that, and some water companies have said so today, that if there’s the cost of new infrastructure, they’re unfortunately gonna have to pass that along to consumers. Just like any other business.” Said Crowley.
At the suggestion of View-Caps and Steamboat Mountain water supply employees, Crowley and the Commissioners are looking into alternative water sources that might be more cost-effective and sustainable in these rural settings. Alternatives like dedicated water tanks should be installed in subdivisions to fight fires.
“Absolutely a good conversation, and we’re not done. You know, we didn’t take any action today just because we’re gonna get together and kind of talk about specific concerns and see what we can do moving forward.” Said Crowley.
Crowley asked Young and Sowell to assemble a list of specific points of concern throughout the county that could demonstrate the danger and need for change. He says the Commissioners Court will be researching this wide array of concerns over the next two months or so, also planning to hold a workshop to understand the needs present and what the County could legally do to address them.
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