Fire Department Christmas Dinner

On Saturday, Steve and I attended the Calabash Fire Department's Annual Dinner. In March the Department opened a second station just outside Brunswick Plantation and Steve signed up to be a volunteer firefighter. He goes to training sessions on Monday nights (work permitting) and has been on a few fire calls. So far he has not been allowed into burning buildings, but he is learning to drive and work the pumps for the tanker truck. He also (with my help) created a web site for them www.CalabashFD.org which has been very successful. The editor of our local newspaper even called to ask about it. He was getting a lot of hits from our website because we link to articles he writes about the department. The award for "Rookie Firefighter of the Year" was given jointly to Steve and four other rookies from Brunswick Plantation.

To my surprise, I was also presented with an award. A few months ago the firechief asked me to produce maps of the fire district. Because we live in a rural area, many of the printed maps are incorrect. The area is also growing rapidly and the map companies are not keeping up to date. The chief gave me some software and I loaded up the maps for the district and corrected them. For the newer developments such as Brunswick Plantation, I had to draw the maps from scratch. I also indexed all the streets in the district so that the firefighters can look up the street when they first jump in the truck, and at least know which neighborhood to head for. Anyway, the maps have been a huge success and I received a firefighter's jacket with my name sewn on it.