If you've seen the truck, you know why it looks special- with a patriotic paint job and pictures depicting the tragedy on September 11th, the truck sends a message. The less obvious message is the truck's purpose.
It's called a heavy rescue vehicle. It's equipped for disaster. The Madison city fire department's new truck isn't used to fight fires, it's used to fight terrorism.
The whole concept of operations is to prepare for a possible WMD or Weapons of Mass Destruction incident. The truck was bought with funding from the National Department of Homeland Security.
The funds were distributed by the Alabama Emergency Management Agency. The agency decided that what they would do with the funding is form regional teams and ours happens to be a heavy rescue team.
Madison Fire is the first department to get their specialized vehicle- one that for them, came with a special paint job. "When you see this truck, you see what America is now, we're not the safe little place we used to be, now we have to have equipment like this."
Firefighters aren't only dealing with house fires and medical calls, they're dealing with bioterrorism, and planes crashing through buildings. While the new truck isn't equipped to put out fires, it will prove very useful in a number of emergency situations, such as car crashes and water efforts.
Meanwhile, the Huntsville city fire department is anticipating the arrival of a new vehicle that's equipped to handle all kinds of hazardous materials emergency situations.
