EMS in the Northern Reaches of the Shenandoah Valley: A Series of Essays

EMS?in Aspect
Rolling on out into a world in flux

Northernmost Shenandoah Valley, July 1, 2004

They are going to commemorate Gettysburg today and during the two days that follow. Folks in Loudon County, VA, will rush off to reenact the epic battle where the Yankees saved the Union—or so we are led to believe. People here in Jefferson County vary as to whether to celebrate or lament this victory. The Past is everywhere. The Future is encroaching upon it. The Present is in limbo.

EMS is inflected by the past and very much threatened by the future. Change means an increased demand for services, personnel and disposable resources. Multimillion-dollar firehouses are surfeited by condos. Depreciation becomes a word in the chief’s working vocabulary. Quality service and volunteer traditions do well until the builders come and condos scar the mountainside. As the old guard of this society is pushed to the sidelines, the climate for EMS seems destined to suffer. County-supported public safety schemata will have to be the law of the land. Voters newly arrived from D.C. or Megalopolis in general will settle into their homes and vote for paid daytime EMS and maybe paid ALS around the clock too. Homeland security grants garnered by astute planners and assistant fire chiefs will add to the momentum. Being prepared will be a good way to fund an increasing scope of activities. Fire-EMS will benefit. EMT firefighters will multiply in number and accept pay for the shortened span of years they put in.

Housing will increase the need for tanker trucks that will have to accompany superpumpers to serious fires. The fact that all addresses in the region have their own separate 9-1-1 addresses will facilitate planning for the responses to be made to fires, major wrecks, explosions and maybe even a germ warfare attack. It will all be so orderly. No more wild and wonderful. Get out the regimented grids for the planners and the engineers.

The irony of it all is immense. The fire and zeal of the people riding in 80% of the places we visited for this series will be subdued. Maybe they will coach youth soccer. Or find a gray or blue unit to dress up for when Gettysburg or Antietam is acted out for the benefit of the tourists and the locals themselves.

A businesslike and taciturn uniformity should evolve by 2020. Matchbox firehouses with prefab trucks and rigs issuing forth from them seems inevitable. The personality politics of legendary volunteer fire-EMS chiefs will give way to a smoother and homeland security-influenced breed of emergency management pros who worry about critical infrastructure.

The sorrow is for the loss of the age and the love of fire-EMS it implied for all concerned. The iron will to endure and carry on smacks of the Charge of the Light Brigade. Most of them know it cannot last. But EMS done right and with zeal is a wave they will ride to the end.