Panama City Fire Department places bags over faulty fire hydrants

Rickey Stokes

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Posted by: RStokes
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Date: Dec 01 2023 11:00 AM

PANAMA CITY, FL. (WMBB) — Panama City Fire Department is working with less than acceptable fire hydrants. 

The issue came to light after a fire destroyed the St. Andrews Bay Yacht Club.

The hydrant across the street didn’t function.

Turns out of the city’s 1,800 hydrants, 70 are out of service and 44 need repairs.

City officials are now marking the 70 out-of-service hydrants with these bright orange bags.

They have the words ‘out of service’ printed in black.

Residents have been unaware that the hydrants weren’t working, but fire officials say they knew and were able to work around the issue without hurting their response to fires.

“So our crews are already aware of any potential issues with the water system. It’s identified in our programming and throughout the city. As well. So our crews already make adjustments on tactics and how they’re going to respond to an incident,” Panama City Fire Department Fire Chief David Collier said.

Collier says they normally use trash bags to designate non-working fire hydrants.

But he believes the new covers are more professional.

Collier planned to use them next spring when firefighters conducted their hydrant maintenance cycle.

But after the yacht club fire, they decided to do it now.

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