Missouri: St. Louis Fire Captain Trower Receives Excellence in Service Award on Oct. 30 for Restoring More Than 85 Vandalized Hydrants
Follow-up: St. Louis, Missouri — Mayor Cara Spencer and Fire Chief Dennis Jenkerson presented the city's Excellence in Service Award to Fire Captain Bradley Trower at fire department headquarters on the morning of Oct. 30, honoring him for devising an emergency adapter overnight that put more than 85 vandalized fire hydrants back into service.
Thieves had stolen the hydrants' brass valves to sell as scrap, leaving them unusable and surrounding neighborhoods without dependable fire water. Spencer praised Trower, saying he 'saw a threat to our neighborhoods and solved it overnight' and 'didn't wait for a long-term fix — he built one.' Jenkerson said a hydrant that doesn't work puts everyone at risk, and that Trower recognized the danger immediately and produced a practical fix his companies could use right away.
Chief Operating Officer Ben Jonsson said copper and brass theft has become a growing citywide infrastructure problem that has created major public safety risks in recent months, noting that earlier wire thefts along the Eads Bridge and Leonor K. Sullivan Boulevard on the riverfront had knocked out some street lights. The city has warned scrap dealers that buying such stolen metal will bring serious consequences.
Source: GSM·America
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：圣路易斯市政厅外景。图片来源：Wikimedia Commons（CC BY 3.0），GSM固定图库。 / Photo: St. Louis City Hall, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0), GSM fixed library.
