“Caution: houses crossing” isn’t a traffic warning you see very often but on Thursday, Feb. 9, that’s exactly what members of Colonie police and firefighter were telling motorists on their morning commutes.
One of two homes on Old Niskayuna Road was loaded onto a wheeled platform and rolled down the street to its new location at the town’s Municipal Training Center at 100 Wade Road around 9:30 a.m. Thursday. A foundation will be built underneath it to provide a permanent resting place.
“By bringing these two houses over, we’ve actually made a city street,” said Pete Lattanzio, fire services chief. “(The Municipal Training Center) has a mobile home on it, a four-way intersection and another vacant corner we hope to put a commercial building on.”
The homes, donated in 2009 by Peter Campito of Campito Properties, will be furnished like regular homes and give emergency responders training opportunities.
“This will give our EMS responders the opportunity to train in a very lifelike setting. Very often our buildings are empty … so there’s no things they’d run into on a regular basis,” said Lattanzio.
The houses, which used to be occupied until Campito decided to build on the property, will be furnished like a family actually lived there—dishes on the table, clothes in the closet, toys strewn by the stairway.
“In a real emergency, that’s what folks are going to have to deal with,” said Lattanzio. “The more that we can train our people, the better they’re going to be able to respond and react during an emergency.”
Keeping the firefighters and other first responders safe is also a priority, and these new homes will help ensure that happens.
“Ultimately, we want to make sure our people come home safe at the end of the day. The better training we can offer will prepare them for actual emergencies and allow them to operate more efficiently and safer,” said Lattanzio.
Training scenarios at the houses include search and rescue during heavy smoke, hostage negotiation, SWAT team deployments and forensic activities like fingerprint dusting or blood spatter analysis.
Relocation of the structures and filling them with objects will come at no cost to the town. Grant money acquired by the Albany County District Attorney Davis Soares and Assemblymen Bob Reilly and Jack McEneny covered the cost.
“They all saw the value of what we were trying to accomplish and understand the importance of training our personnel,” said Lattanzio. “They helped us achieve this goal; it’s been a collaborative effort from a lot of people.”
The training center already draws groups from across the Capital Region and state, including the town’s police department, fire services, EMS responders and 12 volunteer fire departments. It provided more than 50 government and corporate entities with training ground and clocked about 270,000 hours of training in the past six years, according to town officials.
The additional two homes are expected to attract even more interest and could bring in some cash for the town through rental charges for using the site for training.
“We could generate revenue there,” said Supervisor Paula Mahan. “It’s a nice improvement for the town.”
Emergency personnel are constantly training and Lattanzio said for certain courses or experiences unable to be offered in Colonie, a few people are sent out of town for it, which can get costly.
“We’ll be able to offer a wider variety of training and there may be some courses out there now we can’t get locally because we didn’t have a facility to do it,” said Lattanzio. “We can bring some specialized training here to the Capital District. … It will help keep costs down and improve training.”
Lattanzio said he hopes to have the homes ready for service by May or June at the very latest.
“I’m glad to see it’s all coming to fruition and am looking forward to the day we open these up for use,” he said.
