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Emergency crews keep going wrong directions
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Editor, Manteca Bulletin,
We live at the corners of Airport Way and Woodward Avenue.  I cannot count how many times emergency vehicles turn right on Woodward, and then 30 seconds later return and all go another direction.  They are losing precious seconds by these errors.  I know it cannot be just  the Fire Department (city of county), or just the ambulance responders, or just the law enforcement (Police or Sheriff’s) who get their directions wrong because all of them have done it and on many occasions.

They are losing homes or lives by these minutes lost in going the wrong way.  But you cannot ignore that the Fire Department goes one way at this intersection, and the ambulance goes another.  Again, only to have one or the other turn around and then follow the first.  So I know it is not as if they are on separate calls.  It is a sad situation. We have even on two separate occasions had to go out into the street and flag down the emergency responders as they had already passed a burning house , or a serious accident, for whatever the reason.

I don’t know if the problem lies with the mapping programs they are using, or the updates thereto or maybe the city and county sectors not communicating with all the new streets being put in.  Or does it lie with the 911 dispatch.  Who knows?  But, the problem exists none the less and needs to be addressed before more lives are lost or property are lost.  I have spoken many times to the various emergency responders, and have gotten very vague responses.  Again, I doubt it is solely their individual faults.  I know they are not intentionally going the wrong way so many times.  But the issue needs to be addressed, as growth will continue, with or without funding for our emergency teams.

And, I highly doubt that this issue is happening just in this area of town.  I would venture to guess it is happening on all perimeters that used to be solely agricultural and now are populated with new homes and development.
Leanne LaBare-Magincalda
Manteca
June 27, 2009