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Trailer Park Prepared for Emergencies

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

When residents of the Imperial Carson Mobile Estates trailer park yell “Fire!” they don’t have to wait for the fire department.

A squad of neighbors pushing a bright red three-wheel firefighting cart will rush to their aid.

Residents of this well-tended park at 21111 Dolores St. have banded together to prepare themselves for fires, earthquakes and other emergencies. The community of elderly people and middle-aged blue-collar workers developed the emergency plan to insure their self-sufficiency and promote a sense of community.

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“If a fire breaks out in the park, we are ready to go,” said Jim Schaefer, park manager. “Residents feel more safe knowing that we can help them in case of a fire.”

It was Schaefer, 49, who came up with the idea to build the firefighting cart.

The cart has no tanks. Instead, it is fed by a hose connected to a fire hydrant. Pipes in the cart channel the water to two hoses that can be wheeled to any of the 192 homes in the park.

The cart, which Schaefer completed in September after 80 hours of labor, features a platform fashioned from a rusty door and a toolbox made from an old Army cartridge box. It cost park residents about $900, a sum they collected in fund-raising events that included a dinner-dance and raffles.

Schaefer said he became interested in building the cart last February during a neighborhood watch meeting sponsored by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Deputies told residents that during a major earthquake or other natural disaster, the county’s rescue squad and fire department might not be able to reach some neighborhoods for 72 hours.

The firefighting cart is the centerpiece of a home-grown emergency preparedness network at Imperial Carson Park.

About 30 park residents formed the network--called the Neighborhood Emergency Aid Team or NEAT--in March after the neighborhood watch meeting. The group includes several committees that are responsible for various tasks in an emergency.

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Some NEAT members, for instance, have been trained in CPR and firefighting, while others are responsible for shutting off gas and water valves after an earthquake.

“We have so many elderly people who cannot even get out of the house, so it is good to have some of the younger people prepared to help when we have an emergency,” said 75-year-old Stanley Rutkowski, who has lived in the park since 1984.

Although the program is new, park residents hope to make it a model for other mobile-home parks. Indeed, almost as soon as Schaefer finished building the firefighting cart, residents from other trailer parks in Carson asked him to help make carts for them.

“We are very ambitious,” said Marty McHale, a member of NEAT. “We have dreams to have a first-class operation.”

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