Madison County receives $300,000 fire safety grant
Thanks to a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, families in Madison County will be better prepared for house fires.
U.S. Rep. Bud Cramer (D-Ala.) along with Madison County Commissioner Dale Strong and Commission Chairman Mike Gillespie visited the brand-new Legacy Elementary in Harvest Aug. 14 to announce that $300,000 had been granted to provide smoke detectors to homes throughout Madison County.
Legacy's kindergartners gathered in the shining new gymnasium to hear Cramer's speech.
"A fear of any family is for their loved ones to be asleep at home when a fire breaks out," said Cramer. "This situation can end in tragedy if homes are not equipped with smoke detectors and individuals remain unaware of the fire until it is too late. This funding will help our community take steps to save countless lives by providing smoke detectors in homes across our region."
The school's kindergarten teachers were all presented with a smoke detector with which to educate their classes. One student, however, already seemed to be an expert.
"If there's a fire, it'll tell you. And you have to get out of the house if it goes off," said 5-year-old Michael Bodeker, who was sure his family had one in their house and that it had batteries.
After the presentation, the children were ushered into the sunny heat outside, where firemen from the Madison, Harvest and Monrovia stations were on hand to show them their trucks and equipment.
Chants of "Don't hide, go outside" were prompted from the students by Harvest Firefighter Rick Oelkers, who taught them what to do in case of a fire in their homes.
According to statistics from the Alabama State Fire Marshall's office, there were 918 fire related deaths across the state from 1997 until 2006.
Thirty-nine fatalities occurred in Madison County over the same period.
"That's just too many," Strong said.
