I can’t address your location, but I will address the other emergency responder locations I have observed.
While it is true that there is down time, it’s also true that the facilities and equipment at the places I observed were immaculate.
Some people had obviously spent a great deal of time keeping the equipment in almost original condition, despite some of the circumstances that equipment had been soiled under.
I don’t begrudge these folks the down time, and I will state further that down time in any job is not what it is cracked up to be. The time passes slowly and can be very grating to deal with.
These people often spend days away from their families. It is also true they then get uninterrupted days with their families too.
They are there when we need them. I am glad they are.
Yes, I dont mean to say they were all sitting behind the dunkin donuts. Not by any stretch.
The amount of maintenance and training that I witnessed on a daily basis was impressive.
You could eat off the fire apparatus, and the floor of the department. I was next to the bomb squad unit when they came back into the station. The process of “standing down” was just as impressive as them deploying.
I guess my point was that these guys are not out fighting crime all of the time. But when this stuff happens they ALL go.