20 Years of Impact: Emergency Response Time Stories Helped Drive the Mayor’s Race

A dozen years ago, then-Voice of San Diego reporter Liam Dillon dug into a study that spotlighted consistent emergency response delays in southeastern San Diego. 

The study was collecting dust. Dillon wanted to bring it to life. 

He made a massive Public Records Act Request with the city’s Fire-Rescue Department and eventually spent weeks knocking on doors to find residents impacted by the city’s failures. 

The resulting series of stories quantified conventional wisdom about disparities south of Interstate 8, spurred mayoral candidates to create response plans and ultimately inspired former Mayor Kevin Faulconer and others to deliver solutions. 

… 

San Diegans who live south of the 8 have long bemoaned the city’s disinvestment in their communities.  

A 2011 report from Citygate Associates confirmed their grievances. It explained that the neighborhood surrounding Home Avenue, where the city had planned to build a fire station, experienced more delayed response times from firefighters and paramedics than any other part of the city. Paradise Hills, College Area, Skyline and Encanto followed on the list of problematic response zones. 

After the report came out, city leaders pledged to build fire stations in those neighborhoods – and by mid-2013, they had nothing to show for it. 

In honor of Voice of San Diego’s 20th anniversary, we’re looking back at the stories we broke that had a tremendous impact on San Diego. Read more here.

Dillon was determined to show what that had meant for southeastern San Diego residents. He spent weeks combing through response time data and finding residents affected by response time issues. 

In July 2013, Dillon published his first story about poor response times and broken city promises on delivering new fire stations. The story led with the tragic passing of 18-year-old Rickquese McCoy, who bled to death after a delayed Fire-Rescue Department response after a shooting. 

Dillon published multiple follow-ups, including a more in-depth September 2013 story on why emergency responses were specifically delayed in southeastern San Diego. 

In that story, Dillon noted that the Fire-Rescue Department had a longstanding goal to respond to medical emergencies within seven and a half minutes at least 90 percent of the time. The department was often falling short of that goal about 15 years ago when consultants studied response times, especially in southeastern San Diego communities. 

A week after the September story, then-councilmember Myrtle Cole, who represented southeastern San Diego, asked then-interim Mayor Todd Gloria to look into pursuing a temporary station in Skyline. 

Around the same time, following the fall of ex-Mayor Bob Filner, the leading mayoral candidates each felt compelled to assemble plans to solve the emergency-response disparities.  

Then city officials announced plans to put more money toward new fire stations in City Heights and Skyline to address the problems Dillon documented. 

Faulconer won the special election for mayor. His first budget included funding for a two-person crew to respond to emergencies in Encanto and a new temporary station in Skyline. As Dillon wrote, a pilot two-person crew was already showing promise. 

Skyline’s temporary station opened in August 2015. 

The city discontinued the two-person crew once the new temporary station opened, Deputy Fire Chief Becky Newell said in a recent interview. 

Since then, Newell said, response times in the neighborhood and areas surrounding it have improved with the help of other advances. Newell said technological upgrades with mapping and dispatch, plus new partnerships allowing responses by other cities’ firefighters when needed have allowed the department to deploy crews more efficiently. 

A new ambulance system model allowing city ambulance contractor Falck to subcontract with other companies to respond during heavy demand times has also helped the city more consistently meet its response time goals throughout the city, Newell said. 

In the first week of October, the Fire-Rescue Department reports it met its goal of responding to 90 percent of medical calls within seven and a half minutes in the city’s southern district, which includes southeastern San Diego.  

To further up its game, the city is preparing to build a new fire station in Webster, a southeastern San Diego neighborhood close to others that the Citygate report found were plagued by slow responses. 

City officials are now  working on environmental reviews for the planned Webster station at 47th Street and Fairmount Avenue.

Newell is enthusiastic about how the new station could improve responses in the communities Dillon’s reporting highlighted. 

“That area would really benefit from having a resource,” Newell said. “It’s hard to access because of the canyons and the surrounding stations that would respond are also very busy, high-volume stations. That community really deserves to have a dedicated station.” 

The post 20 Years of Impact: Emergency Response Time Stories Helped Drive the Mayor’s Race appeared first on Voice of San Diego.