Flooding in Philly suburbs spurs increase in water rescues

Climate change is making flooding worse in the Delaware Valley. As a result, water rescues are becoming more common in Philadelphia suburbs. And firefighters, they're adapting, buying boats and dry suits. WHLY News took a trip to the famed fire company in Westchester to see how they are preparing for the next big flood. Hours and hours of training for all the guys. I can't tell you how many hours of training. It's all volunteer. these guys put a lot of their own hours in away from home and their families. We have about 65 sets of gear here once a year. We go up to the Schuylkill River for three drill nights in a row so that we get our members cycled through and maintain their proficiency on operating the boats. So we'll go through some of the courses that we have up there and show you guys some of the maneuvers that we would do in a swift water situation. They have a bunch of buoys up here that for the guys to get comfortable with the boats, they'll circle in and out serpentine through the buoys and that gets them comfortable with the boat. People underestimate the water all the time and it doesn't take but six, eight, ten inches of water and the cars are stalled out. Majority of our water rescues are generally people driving their vehicles through water that they think that they're going to make it through. They drive their vehicle through the water and then and then they get stuck and people panic. Last time we lost these boats was during Ida, I would guess, right? In anything major, yeah. For the majority of the water rescue incidents that we're doing, you're only gonna be in the water for the extremely rare event like Ida. We were in those suits all night. We went out a little after five, and I think our last one was about 9.30 in the morning. We went pretty much all night long.