A little-known fire response protocol has been in place and has worked for 65 years to protect one of the Wyoming Valleys most important landmarks and resources.
The Wilkes-Barre Fire Department has lead responsibility on fire alarms at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Plains Township, just outside the boundary with Wilkes-Barre City.
Plains Township Fire Department, which has expanded as Plains has grown since the 1940s, also is a first responder. But the protocol sought by no less than the federal government remains in place.
We use the incident command system, said Wilkes-Barre Fire Chief James Jay Delaney. Wilkes-Barre Citys department has been designated as the command unit since Sept. 5, 1950, only a few days after the official turnover of the new VA hospital by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which oversaw construction, to the Veterans Administration.
The fingerprints of former Congressman Daniel J. Flood, patron of the VA hospital, are on the protocol. Delaney acknowledged that Flood likely had a hand in ensuring the citys fire department, then and now the largest in Luzerne County, would have primary responsibility for fire calls emanating from the facility.
This is an example of regionalization at work, Delaney said. He cited the ambulance mutual aid agreement between the city, Plains Township, Hanover Township and Trans-Med, a private company, as a more recent example of regional cooperation.
If an alarm comes in from the VA Medical Center, formerly called the VA Hospital, the city automatically dispatches two engines, a ladder truck, an ambulance and an assistant fire chief. Plains, which now has a station on Fox Hill Road, also responds automatically with multiple apparatus.
Wilkes-Barre Township, which borders the city and Plains, did not have a fire department in 1950. Its current volunteer department is not in the VA Medical Center protocol.
Delaney said the incident commander at a VA event would call for additional support from a wide region if necessary, just as would occur in a fire at any other hospital or nursing home where multiple patients would require evacuation.
The Army Corps of Engineers formally asked Wilkes-Barre on Aug. 7, 1946 if its fire department would respond to calls originating from the planned hospital. President Harry Truman had approved the 35-acre site on Sept. 20, 1945.
On Sept. 5, 1950, city council ratified the response plan and authorized Luther M. Kniffen, director of the Department of Public Safety, to notify the Corps of Engineers.
The $125,000 cost of the land on a hillside off Route 315 and East End Boulevard was raised by veterans groups, labor unions, womens organizations and citizens. Floods friendship with Truman was credited with winning location of a hospital in Wyoming Valley. In the post-World War II period, the VA hospital system grew from 45 to 125.
Six contracts totaling $11,097,060 were awarded by the Corps of Engineers on March 1, 1948, and groundbreaking was held April 1, 1948. Geno Merlie of Peckville, a Medal of Honor winner in World War II, turned the first spade of dirt at 3:10 p.m., a newspaper account noted, and R.A. Davis, president of the Chamber of Commerce, turned the first steam shovel load of dirt a few minutes later.
Flood was not in Congress at the time, having been defeated in the 1946 election by Mitchell Jenkins. But Flood was out front in the main newspaper photo and his comments got the lead news play.
From today on, we pledge our sacred trust to the government of the United States and to this wonderful Veterans Administration facility down through the avenue of years, the loquacious Flood said. We are cognizant that our first duty is to the veterans who will be cared for at this hospital.
The news account mentions Jenkins, who called the hospital a tribute to the public spirit of the community.
Flood won re-election to Congress in 1948, only to lose again in 1952 in the Eisenhower landslide. He won in 1954 and stayed in Congress until his resignation Jan. 31, 1980.
The Corps of Engineers confidence in the city fire department, likely fostered by Flood, was upheld again recently when the citys ISO fire rating was upgraded from 3 to 2.
