St. Tammany News

SLIDELL - Slidell Fire Chief Larry Hess has five years left till retirement.

But his long-term plan to beef up the fire district has just begun. Just two years deep into a five-year program to overcome the department's past money skimming scandals, a union that wanted to run out Hess's predecessor, Chief Milton Kennedy, and a suspicious country club fire with origins never solved, the department is on the rise, but the future may hinge on public support, Hess said.

Speaking at Slidell's Chamber of Commerce luncheon last week, Hess said he had the best job "in the parish, in the world," but to maintain a highly rated department, it must expand its revenue base, possibly by minor service or property transfer fees.

Fire Protection District No. 1 sustained an 18.5 percent hit in revenue after Hurricane Katrina axed much of the department's property tax collections, he said. Although that's a far cry from the 30 to 35 percent pitfall Hess had anticipated would cripple the department and cause three of its seven stations to close, something must be done, he said.

Nearly 98 percent of the department's revenue is generated by property tax, and as shown with Katrina, "you can't have all your eggs in one basket," he said.

"This is ridiculous. No business should have one revenue stream," Hess said. "As the CEO of this business, it's incumbent upon me to diversify this."

Hess, donned in his military-like fire chief uniform, highlighted his case with a 30-minute PowerPoint presentation.

Each year the department collects 35 mills of Slidell residents' tax monies to cover 122 square miles and responds to 400 to 600 fires annually. In recent years the state property insurance rating committee updated District No. 1's fire protection to three out of five in its urban areas and to four in its rural areas, an increase that shaves down homeowners' insurance.

The department also in 2005 built a $350,000 training tower, one of the only facilities in south Louisiana to help firemen fight live fires and even study in a fire science lab that mimics currents, patterns and back drafts of live fires.

This year, the department will deliver an advanced life support training team to respond while ambulance services arrive, and the department saw a 285 percent increase in those in higher education enrollment and 440 percent increase in those attending the national fire academy.

But the most daring and pivotal moments came more than four months ago on Aug. 29 when Hurricane Katrina slammed ashore. Firemen spent days without talking to their families or seeing their own homes. They battled the guilt of missing their families with the responsibility to save strangers' lives.

After the first moments after Katrina passed and an eerily dead silence swept across Slidell, firemen prepared for the worse, Hess said. Some cried; others tried to look away from the destruction but couldn't find a place of Slidell unravaged. They headed out to perform their duties, rescuing people from roofs and entering destroyed homes that could collapse at any second. In the end they saved 2,800 people, 250 who were dancing with death, Hess said.

"Our guys did a great job," Hess said. "I'm the kind of guy that wears his heart on his sleeve, and I'm OK with that. But when I talk about these guys it's hard. They made me so proud. It's not what they did because that's they're job. It's the manner in which they did it that impressed me. It showed me the fiber of what our firefighters are."