Thread by @jasonrantz

EXCLUSIVE: On 10-3, the Seattle Fire Dept had an astonishing five aid units, three fire engines & two medic units out of service due to lack of staff.

What could be behind this? The COVID vaccine mandate.

SFD staff must turn in their paperwork on Monday or be fired.

I can confirm that 55 vaccine verification forms have not been submitted. 54 are uniformed, 1 is a civillian.

SFD is currently offering contingency staffing plans if those 55 do not submit their vaccine paperwork. It would severely hurt the SFD.

Here are the plans...

-Cancelling all non-essential training, community events & limiting annual building inspection focus to schools.

-Prioritizing which units could be placed out-of-service through analysis of response routes to ensure City coverage by SFD remains in place.

-Adjusting response models to various incident types to best serve residents while below normal staffing levels.

-Activating their Resource Management Center to monitor response data in real-time.

Terminated staff would include firefighters, EMTs, and chief officers.

This would occur on top of losing up to 200+ Seattle police officers if the remaining employees don't turn in their vaccination forms.

About 100 officers asked for accommodations. The pattern has been to reject accommodations. If SPD loses 100 officers, there will be chaos.

SPD lost 355 officers since last year (about a third of the force). It has only 1,048 deployable officers. It should be about 1500 for a city this size; one that is currently experiencing a surge in violent crime.

Can Seattle afford to lose this many firefighters and police? No.