Syracuse Sutphen Aerial Towers

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Here's the truck that replaced the one damaged above. It is a 1995 95' tower (HS-3017), with a stainless steel body and a 4-door cab, both new for Syracuse Sutphens. It also featured a 1500 gpm pump, 400-gallon water tank, and 184' of ground ladders. Cost was $495,450. The unit is lettered for one of two new companies created that year - Area TACtical Company 5. I was its first (and as it turned out, its only) Captain. The concept combined a TeleSqurt engine and a Sutphen aerial tower into one 2-piece company with six personnel - 2 officers and 4 firefighters - in an attempt to reduce manpower from the standard 4 & 4. The concept was tried at Station 5 on the west side and Station 9 on the east side. As you can probably imagine, it didn't work very well. My first question to the Cheif's Office was pretty simple - "What 2 jobs on the fireground don't you want me to do?".  This, of course, was not what they wanted to hear. Instead of an officer and three personnel on the engine and an officer and three personnel on the truck, the ATAC companies had an officer and two men on each piece. I was the only Captain, all other officers were Lieutenants. It was an unsafe and inefficient concept from the first day, and it is due solely to the dedication and hard work of the men that it functioned at all, and more importantly, that no one was injured. We were busy as hell, which was a lot of fun, but we never had the right number of personnel in the right place at the right time, which wasn't fun at all. The District Chiefs would see us approaching the scene, and want to use us as an engine and a truck - but I didn't have enough personnel to do that. The worst problem, as far as I was concerned, was accountability. When things went bad on the fire scene, and the fire ground commander asked me, "Captain, where are your men?", and my only honest answer was, "Chief, I know where HALF of them are." . . . that was not acceptable to me, nor should it be to anyone. The concept lasted exactly two years, until sanity prevailed and full staffing was restored to the two engines and trucks. The ATACs were no more. We couldn't get that lettering off of the apparatus fast enough.

 



 

1997 brought a three-truck order - and a switch to tilt-cabs for easier maintenance. The polished aluminum wheels were added . . well, just because I liked 'em. The new trucks cost $536,780 each (Damn, these things were getting expensive!) and were assigned to Trucks 1, 4 and 5. This photo shows HS-3183, which was delivered to Truck 5 when new but later transferred to Truck 2 as shown in 2001 when Truck 5 received another new unit.

 



 

Two additional units were purchased in 2001, following the same basic pattern as the three 1997 units, but now resplendent in the new dark red Syracuse livery.  The cost was up a bit yet again, to $590,000 per copy. At first I was not a huge fan of the new color scheme, but I must admit that it grew on me over the years. The two 2001 units went to Trucks 8 and 5.  The one pictured is Truck 5's rig (HS-3550):