Logandale Station #73 Hosts Open House

By MAGGIE MCMURRAY

Moapa Valley Progress

Logandale Fire Station 73 held an open house on Friday before the Bowler May Day Festival. The station was open to community members to meet and greet the local heroes that serve this community while becoming more familiar with emergency resources and personnel.

Open house attendees got to climb into, around, and all over fire engines, helicopters, ambulances, and police and park ranger vehicles, while talking with the vehicle operators and learning more about their jobs.
“We hold this event so that both adults and kids can get to know us and see what we do,” said open house organizer Tim Deberardinis. “That way, if they ever need our services, they are not timid or scared because they’ve already met us in a friendly environment.”

Most kids were not timid about investigating the many vehicles made available by the volunteers. Chanell Robinson said her sons Braxton, 5, and Malakai, 2, loved the vehicles. “We had to come when the boys saw all these emergency vehicles,” she said. “They both had a great time playing doctor in the back of the ambulance as well.”

EMT Stacey DuPee and her rescue vehicle was a favorite for many kids. She showed them how to use a stethoscope to listen for a heartbeat.
The open house highlighted more than just emergency personnel and their vehicles, however. There were many other booths from providers of support services as well.

The Living With Fire organization from UNCE Reno was there teaching people of risks of wildfire.
“We invited Living With Fire because we have so many controlled agricultural burns in our area and we want people to know how make them safe and what to do if they get out of control,” said Deberardinis.
The BLM brought Smokey the Bear to make an appearance. Daxton Healey, 8, said, “Smokey the Bear was my favorite thing here tonight. I’ve loved him ever since I was in 1st grade.”

Other participants included Mesa View Home Health and Hospice and A Caring Hand Home Care
Cindy Hardy was there to represent CERT and showed people an app they can download on their phone from FEMA that will not only provide alerts for up to 5 locations, but also will provide area-specific advice for 72-hour kits and available disaster resources. The app is free and can be found in your app store by typing “FEMA” into the search bar.

Air Methods Advantage was also present, in combination with the Mercy Air helicopter, to teach people about insurance they can get to cover any gaps in their current insurance coverage for flight situations. The insurance, which runs $40/individual and $75/family per year, covers any Mercy Air flight to Dixie or Vegas.

Deberardinis urged people to become familiar with the coverage. “We see people going out on flights all the time,” he said. “I recently had a discussion with someone whose flight bill was $52,000. If your insurance doesn’t cover all of it, that can leave you with a pretty steep balance. We live so far from a medical facility that this is something people in our community should look into.”
More information on this can be found at airmethodsadvantage.com.

Other organizations at the open house included the Lake Mead National Park Service Rangers and Metro, who often work hand-in-hand with station volunteers as first responders.
Rotary was also there, cooking over 300 hot dogs provided by the station to serve as part of a free dinner of hot dogs, chips, vegetable trays and cookies for all attendees. Rotary representative Dennis Anderson said, “We are thrilled to death they invited us to be a part of this. We love to participate in community activities.”

As attendees went around, they had a passport that was stamped by each booth that they could turn in for a raffle ticket when full. At the end of the night, the station raffled off 2 duffle bags and 3 $50 Amazon gift cards to 5 lucky winners.
“Events like these are great because they bring our community together and show families the depth of resources available to them in case of an emergency,” said Station Chief David Clegg. “Both kids and adults can meet our first responders and see first-hand how much our local volunteers care about them and this community. We really appreciate the community’s support.”