On April 27th, around 40 folks from Kent County and surrounding areas (Kentucky also) worked hard to haul water with tankers for 2-hours uninterrupted. The drill was the culmination of our 16-hr Rural Water Supply Operation Seminar that was sponsored by the Kent County Fire Chiefs Association and hosted by the Chestertown VFD. The goal of the drill was to try and run a rural hitch operation for the first hour and then transition to a dump tank operation for the second hour. Ten tankers and two fill sites were used to accomplish the task. One of the tankers was a 6000-gallon tractor- trailer from Magnolia, Delaware and that rig was used during the latter part of the drill simulating an actual response time to the area. The rural hitch operation was able to sustain a flow just under 1,000 gpm and the dump tank operation was able to support a 1900+ gpm operation. Once the tractor-trailer tanker arrived, the three-dump tank operation was reduced to a two-dump tank (4000 gal each) operation and flow to the attack pumper actually increased.

Many thanks to the folks at the Chestertown VFD for the excellent logistical support and many thanks to the vendors who supported the lunch on Saturday! Instructors for the weekend were Mark Davis and Tim Legore.