'Hurricane Gilda has finally been downgraded to a tropical depression, but she has left a trail of devastation in her wake, including right here in Manehattan. The death toll in the city now stands at five, with the recovery of a body from the ruins of a home in Poneway Beach that was ravaged by the huge fire that ripped through that neighbourhood. Fireponies were unable to reach the house and save the elderly mare, but hundreds of other ponies were brought to safety by brave rescuers. One stallion was killed by a falling tree in Manehattan, while another was struck by debris in Hooflyn. Two other deaths in traffic accidents were blamed on the storm conditions. Now the cost will have to be counted, both in lives and in bits. Widespread devastation came to many parts of the city last night, and only in time will we know the true scale of Gilda's damage to both Manehattan and the nation. For WMTN news, I'm Camera Obscura.'
Rosebush Roulade only had the volume on low, as she always did when her coltfriend was asleep. Just from watching the brief news report, she could see how busy Ember Dawn must have been last night and into the early hours of this morning. He had finally made it home a little after noon, when she had been out at work, called in by the branch manager of the bank to help with stock taking and accountability- the structure had suffered flooding overnight, and several members of the staff who would normally have been at work that day, but who had been given leave because of the storm, had worked for a few hours to inventory everything while a private contractor worked on draining the flooded basement. The money vault, fortunately, was watertight, and no bits had been damaged or lost as a result.
Once they had done all they could, Rosebush was sent home again, and she arrived to find Dawn asleep, curled up in bed. She had things to do, chores and errands to run, but instead she had climbed onto the bed with him and dozed for an hour or two. Now it was approaching evening, and she was cooking dinner for the two of them. She counted herself lucky to have gas for the stove still coming through the pipes- many areas of the city were badly hit by the storm and had suffered power outages, broken gas and water pipes, and downed phone lines. Some sections, such as Poneway Beach, were almost completely cut off, according to the news report she had seen, not helped by a transformer explosion over in Manehattan which had shut down a large portion of the city grid temporarily.
The smell of the vegetable stew she was cooking had roused her coltfriend, and Ember Dawn stumbled from the bedroom with a yawn, rubbing at his eyes. 'Hey babe...that smells good...'
'Morning, sleepyhead,' Rosebush replied with a smile. 'It's nearly 5 at night. I guess you slept well?' She chuckled. 'You were snoring like a baby when I got home.'
'I must have been tired,' Dawn replied, giving her a kiss and going to sample the stew, but finding his hoof slapped away from the wooden spoon.
'Uh uh uh, not yet, greedy!' Rosebush tutted, handing him a sandwich and an apple instead. 'You missed your lunch...I kept it for you. Stew won't be ready for a couple of hours yet, so you can enjoy your...breakfast? Brunch? Supper?' She chuckled, and Dawn sat at the small table, munching on his sandwich while watching her work.
''You said I was sleeping when you got home,' Dawn commented. 'Where did you go? I thought the bank was closed today.'
'It is...well, to customers,' Rosebush replied. 'Might be tomorrow, too. The basement store room got flooded so we had to go in and take inventory,' she explained. 'Just for a few hours. When I came back I found a great big lump in my bed.' She chuckled.
Dawn rolled his eyes and munched on his food. 'Of course, if you don't want a big lump in your bed...then that big lump could always have stayed at the firehouse to help the next shift.'
'Hey, I didn't say that, silly!' Rosebush smiled. 'You're the only lump I want in my bed. That's why we bought that new mattress last year, remember?'
Dawn chuckled and finished off his food. 'Just as long as I wake up to you every day, you can call me a big lump all you like.' He went to turn the TV on. The same news report was on repeat, a looped cycle of video and photos of the damage wrought to the city by Hurricane Gilda. The Poneway Beach fire had finally extinguished itself, helped by the rain and the floods, but not to the fireponies, who had been unable to access the cut-off part of the neighbourhood until the storm had died down and one of the smaller fireboats could be brought up close to the shore. Elsewhere in the city, damage was less extensive but no less disruptive, with trees and wires down, traffic lights out, scaffolding and signage and chimneys galore down, windows broken by flying debris, cars trapped in floodwater. The list was extensive and would take a long time to fix, but the emergency services had done a lot of good work during the storm. helping to negate the effects and mitigate the damage as much as possible, saving many lives from Gilda's wrath.
Dawn was proud to have been a part of it. The dozen ponies he and Striker had rescued may well have survived if he hadn't been there; probably they would have been rescued by other companies, after all. But some may not. Some may have succumbed to exposure or hypothermia, or found their houses crumbling around them. Nopony could say for sure. Either way, he had been there, and he had helped out, done his bit during a major emergency. He smiled, looked at Rosebush, and smiled again. She gave him all the more reason to get up and go to work in the morning, as sad as he always was to leave his beloved alone for the day, because he knew that, if she were ever placed in danger, he would want some brave firepony to do every damn thing possible to save her. He also knew that he could make that same difference for some other pony's loved one. The report on TV showed a dramatic rope rescue of a foal from a precariously hanging radio tower. Another innocent life saved. He had to pause and rewind to spot who exactly was making the grab, and he had to laugh and grin when he saw it was his very own beloved brother.
All the more reason to rest up well and get ready for his next shift in two days time. Of course, he could spend time with his marefriend- which might deprive him of some of his stamina- but even after his sleep he felt tired from the long tour of duty. But he would be ready for whatever the next shift might throw at him, because he was an MFD firepony, the best of the best, and that, quite simply, was what he did.
Beep-Boop.
'Engine. Battalion.'
'Box 7031, 1202 8th Avenue, at West 55th Street! Structure fire, Engine goes first due!' Dawn called, before rushing to the rig and pulling on his gear. Serving as the housewatch pony was demanding, but he did so enjoy shouting out the runs as they came in for each unit. He climbed into his seat and slammed the door shut. The rest of the crew got into position, and the Engine raced out of the blocks, followed by Firebrand in his SUV. The address was only a few blocks north of the firehouse, and if it turned out to be a real fire, it would be the first worker of the shift. Two days had passed since Hurricane Gilda had ravaged the city, and there was still evidence of her violent passage all across Manehattan. Power lines were down in the outer boroughs, though Pone-Gen crews were hard at work repairing them. Trees were being cut up by Parks Department personnel, and flooded basements were being pumped out by the Department of Environmental Protection. Meanwhile, the Manehattan Fire Department continued to respond to any and all emergency calls that came in.
Engine 25 drove north, siren wailing, followed by the Battalion. 8th Avenue was one of the great northern through-routes of the borough, with multiple lanes of traffic. There was no sign of smoke or fire up ahead, but the Engine reached 55th Street in a little over ninety seconds from receiving the alarm. They pulled over at the corner and disembarked. Lieutenant Coppertop looked around for any signs of fire. He saw nothing. Nor did the rest of the crew. No smoke, no fire, nopony approaching them with more information. Was it a false alarm?
'Battalion 9 to Manehattan,' Firebrand called on the radio. 'Do you have anything further on our box? We don't see any condition here, K.'
'We're getting apartment 2 Apple at that address now, K,' the dispatcher replied. Coppertop had the crew stand by as the first due ladder rolled up behind them, stopping in front of the fire building. But there still seemed to be nothing for any of them to do. The ladder crew took their entry tools and the pressurised water extinguisher, the 'Can,' into the building, and Firebrand followed. With no active fire or smoke, there was no need, yet, to stretch a hose line, and so the Engine crew stood fast outside on the street.
Dawn looked around. The city had already gotten back to normal, or as close to normal as Manehattan ever truly got, and that was why he loved both living and working in it. There was always something crazy or strange or going on. A case in point was playing out at the street corner. The pedestrian crosswalk light was red and traffic was about to start flowing up the Avenue again, but a Pegasus stallion began his stroll across the five lanes of traffic anyway. Each car in turn advanced right up to him and had to stop or slow right down. Several of them beeped their horns, and the Pegasus raised one of his wings and gave the drivers the middle feather.
'Only in Manehattan, baby,' Striker commented with a chuckle.
'Why doesn't he just fly across the street?' Dawn rolled his eyes.
'Because he's in Manehattan. Ya just gotta go a little nuts, am I right?' Striker replied, grinning. 'Maybe his head's still fucked up from the hurricane.'
'Or maybe he's just an asshole,' Dawn suggested.
'Why not both?' Striker shrugged. The Engine's radio gave a report from inside the building as Chief Firebrand could be heard calling the dispatcher.
'Battalion 9 to Manehattan, all units not yet on scene can go back in service, we'll make this a 10-18 for a 10-26, food on the stove, K.'
10-26 was the signal that all budding cooks feared being transmitted for their apartment- or worse, for their restaurant. It meant a smoke or minor fire condition caused by cooking and confined either to the pot or pan in question, or to the oven or grill upon which the food was being heated. A lot of red faces had been caused over the years by someone burning toast or messing up their hay fries, only to see a parade of fire trucks racing to the scene with their sirens blaring. They were routine incidents, nothing out of the ordinary, and happened every day in their dozens across the city. It was calls like this that made up the bulk of a firepony's day, despite the public perception of grand excitement and constant danger and bravery. That was not to say that a simple call such as this held no danger, for there was always the possibility of a vehicle accident while responding, and many times a seemingly simple call turned out to be something else and held some great hidden danger that was unknown to the incoming units. But food on the stove, electrical wires down, medical runs, minor gas leaks, sparking electrical outlets- those were the kinds of calls that made up the bulk of responses for most units. They were all incidents that needed correcting, all potentially life or property-threatening emergencies, but not filled with the glamour of a last-ditch save of some poor foal from a precarious position- such as Ember Blaze's snatch of Silver Streak from the radio mast- or the tenacious and everlasting grit and determination of fireponies making a tremendous effort to control a huge fire- such as the ENS Canterlot.
The fireponies of Ladder 4 checked for any fire extension in the walls or in the exhaust vent of the stove top where the ritual cremation of several hayburgers had taken place, and found nothing. All of the units were free to go back in service, and Lieutenant Coppertop ordered the crew of Engine 25 to mount up. Together with the Battalion, they looped around onto 9th Avenue in order to head back south. One block south of the firehouse, they were able to swing back onto 8th, reaching their quarters and backing in. Parking the rig was no easy task, for the bays of some firehouses were only just barely wide enough to accept the vehicle that was meant to be parked inside them. That was a consequence of the nature of the city itself- old buildings had been purchased many years ago by the department to house the steam-powered Engines and the simple wooden ladder trucks, all of which were pulled by the same fireponies who would operate the equipment once they arrived. In those days there was no need for a big, bulky, modern rig, loaded up with ropes, medical gear, a centrifugal pump, water tank, ground ladders, foam canisters, multiple different calibers of hose, and a crew that rode aboard the vehicle itself. Times had changed, but many of the firehouses around the city were still the same buildings purchased some hundred years ago.
Engine 25, however, had a much more modern structure, purpose built as a firehouse, and Deep Blue had no trouble reversing the rig into the bay. Once inside, the crew disembarked, connected the exhaust hose to the rig so that the next time it was started up, the noxious fumes from the engine would be taken out of the building to the exterior. They headed to the break room. Ember Dawn stretched a bit as he removed his gear. He still had the housewatch duty.
A loud thump echoed around the firehouse. Dawn looked around curiously. Had somepony dropped a weight in the gym upstairs? No, it was louder than that. Was it even from inside, or did it come from somewhere else?
Chief Firebrand poked his head out of the break room. 'What was that, Dawn?' he asked. 'Did it come from in here?'
'No, Chief.' Dawn shook his head. 'I dunno what it was. Maybe somepony dropped a weight upstairs?' he suggested.
'Sounded like it came from outside,' Firebrand replied. 'Go take a look, see if there's been an accident or something.'
Dawn trotted to the front door of the firehouse and poked his head out, looking left to right. Traffic on 8th Avenue was flowing freely, with no signs of a crash.
Beep-Boop.
'Engine. Battalion. Rescue.'
Dawn galloped to the housewatch desk. A run had come in. Was it related to the noise they had just heard? He examined the display screen as the other fireponies rushed out to their rigs.
'Box 0779, 7th Avenue and 38th Street!' Dawn shouted. 'Explosion! Engine goes third due!'