Families learn about emergency services during National Night Out

Most people only run into emergency service personnel in a bad situation or in an emergency.  Various law enforcement agencies held a National Night Out to give the public a chance to meet them in non-emergency situations.

The event was held at the Ishpeming Township Fire Hall.  The Marquette County Sheriff’s Department, Michigan State Police, DNR, and UPPCO were some of the agencies on hand.  Each agency taught families what they do, what equipment they use, and what services they offer.

“We explain to them about how we respond to stuff, how (in an) emergency situation we react, how we don’t react,” Ishpeming Township Fire Department Chief Gerry Hebert said.  “There’s a lot of things–responding to a fire, whether it’s police, fire, or EMS responding.  There’s multiple ways that we respond and we need the public to be educated about when we respond (and there’s) all the safety aspects as well.”

Hebert said another focus of National Night Out is to get kids aware of emergency personnel.

“By promoting and bringing kids to stuff and having stuff for kids to do, it brings the parents down, then we can educate the kids at such a younger age to be more aware of their surroundings and dealing with an emergency,” he said, “as well as our vehicles responding or anything else.  It makes the kids a little more comfortable if they see us in an emergency setting to know that we are humans that they’ve seen in a different setting, so it’s important to get them down here and meet us in this setting.”

Kids could take rides on fire trucks, meet Sparky the fire station’s mascot, and practice using a fire hose.  There was also free food and music for everyone to enjoy.