The Finest, as the police were called, and the Bravest, the nickname for the firefighters, did not like each other. The saying went that the only thing the two departments could ever agree on was the date of their annual boxing match. Sometimes, they didn’t wait for that date, and fistfights broke out at rescue scenes. The corrosive nature of the relationship had far more serious consequences than a fat lip. To be completely effective, firefighters and police officers needed to share information, to act in concert, to anticipate what the other force might do as a disaster evolved. The
...more
