If there were ever an example of why we are proud to say we are from Dearborn, it is the story of Meghan Marie Salter and how Dearborn officials, firefighters and a growing list of area restaurants are coming to she and her family’s aid.

Dearborn Mayor John B. O’Reilly, Jr. (front row, right); Council President Tom Tafelski (left); and Firefighters Lt. Steve Worden (left) and Brian Keith visit with Meghan Salter at her home while planning a fundraiser with Meagan’s family to help with her medical bills.

Meghan was born a healthy girl in October, 2002.  However, within months of her birth, her health deteriorated.  Now six years old, Meghan has experienced seizures and life-threatening physical illnesses so that she is totally dependent upon medical equipment for life support.

After an untold number of visits to doctors and specialists, even to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for testing, doctors have been unable to determine the cause for her decline or diagnose her condition.

Dearborn residents, city officials, firefighters and dozens of area businesses are stepping forward to help with her family’s medical bills.  On Saturday, Feb. 21, from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. the Dearborn Firefighters Burn Drive is hosting a fundraiser for Meghan at the Ford Community & Performing Arts Center, 15801 Michigan Ave.

The “Meghan’s Miracles II Benefit” is supported by Dearborn Mayor John B. O’Reilly, Jr., Council President Tom Tafelski, other dignitaries and the City’s firefighters.

The fundraising “strolling dinner” at the Center is provided by a growing list of sponsoring area restaurants, including Andiamo, Levy Restaurants, Ford Field Caterers, Park Place Caterers, Tim Horton’s, Shield’s Pizza, Mexican Fiesta Restaurant, Joe’s Top Dog, LaPita and PM Catering. More restaurants are planning to join in support of Meghan and her family.

“Catholic Connection” radio talk show host and motivational speaker Teresa Tomeo will emcee the event, which includes guest speakers, dancing, a tin can raffle, entertainment and a cash bar.

The cost for tickets is $50 per person.

For more information about the benefit, including how to make reservations, donate money, become a sponsor or donate items for the raffle, please visit Meghan’s website at:  www.meghansmiracles.com.

Checks should be made out to Fr. Patrick O’Kelley KofC #3860—Meghan’s Fund.  Include the bottom portion of the reservation/donation form found on the web and mail to Fr. Patrick O’Kelley Council/Meghan’s Fund, C/O Mary Lockwood, 11836 Tall Tree Dr., Plymouth, MI  48170.  All donations are tax-deductible.

When a tanker truck loaded with 10,000 gallons of fuel overturned last Friday on Telegraph in Dearborn, many of us saw the flashing lights from police and fire crews but what we didn’t see is all of the other behind-the-scene work that took place to ensure residents remained safe.

We thought it would be worth mentioning all of the hard work that took place sight unseen. It’s a good example of teamwork and it shows how our tax dollars are put to good work for proper emergency response and our safety, too. The response teams that jumped into action involved numerous city departments, outside agencies and private firms hired by the City working together. It took a lot of pre-planning and practice to ensure all the right things would be done for such an accident.

 To that we say, well done. Here’s a rundown of who took part in the behind the scenes work:

• Dearborn police officers closed Telegraph and access points from nearby side streets to traffic, and also set up a safety perimeter around the area. The road was immediately closed to traffic. It was soon determined that the tanker was leaking fuel and that it appeared that the gas was entering nearby storm sewers. Homes in a four or five-block area were evacuated as a precaution. (Residents were able to return to their homes early the next morning.)

• The Dearborn Fire Department served as the lead response agency. Battalion Chief John Hay acted as incident commander and issued the calls for all of the resources needed to deal with the incident. 

• Firefighters arriving at the scene attended to the tanker driver’s medical needs, helping the driver at the vehicle despite the extreme hazard of leaking fuel.

• Firefighters sprayed special foam from fire department apparatus to help suppress gasoline vapors.

• The Department of Public Works (DPW) provided road salt and street barricades, and its Water Division provided maps of area sewer lines, so that the flow of fuel that made it into the sewers could be tracked.

• The Dearborn Recreation Department and the City’s emergency management coordinator opened the Ford Community & Performing Arts Center as a shelter in the event any evacuating residents did not have family or friends to stay with.

• Representatives of other City departments stood ready to use Dearborn’s reverse 9-1-1 system if it were needed to quickly advise residents of any public safety messages. A second, Wayne County-wide information system was also on standby if needed. (Neither were.)

• The Wayne County Hazardous Materials Response Team was called to the scene. Dearborn helps fund the team and contributes firefighters as team members. The team conducted monitoring of the air and sewers in the area, identified the five leak points on the tanker, plugged them and created the tap needed to pump the tanker’s fuel into another tanker for transport away from the scene.

• The Wayne County Airport Authority (which operates Detroit Metro Airport) brought one of their specialized vehicles to the scene. The vehicle carries high-volume expansion foam, which would have been available to suppress any fuel fire that might have occurred.

• State Farm Insurance agent Bob Zakar volunteered the all-night use of his Telegraph Road office to help first responders.

• The Salvation Army provided food and other support to response personnel.

• Representatives of the U.S. Coast Guard monitored the situation, in the event that leaking fuel had made it from the sewers into the Rouge, and from there to the Detroit River.

• Representatives of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality were also alerted, and monitored the response.

• Also alerted and ready to respond were a variety of other agencies such as Wayne County roads and water system officials, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department and the Michigan State Police.

• The City also contracted with private firms to provide assistance:  VacAll Service of Taylor cleaned up the spilled fuel and J&M Towing of Dearborn righted the overturned tanker and towed it away, allowing Telegraph Road to reopen to traffic.

• City officials also acknowledged the cooperation of the owner of the company that owned the overturned tanker – Fuels Transportation, Inc., of Woodhaven – indicating that the owner stayed at the scene until the incident was resolved.

For those of you who may have missed it, the Detroit Free Press on Sunday ran a front page story about our decaying Michigan roads. That’s hardly breaking news for those of us who do any amount of travel around our city. With record snowfall, record cold and road crews running through record amounts of salt to keep our roads clear, it’s no wonder our streets are crumbling at a record pace.

But Michigan isn’t the only state that gets snow and cold. Yet, our roads seem to deteriorate at a much faster rate. Might the poor condition of our roads be partially a result of Michigan having the highest truck weight limits allowed in the Midwest? 

Potholes along Michigan Avenue in West Dearborn are making the daily commute a painful one.

Travel along the quilted patchwork of asphalt and concrete that now makes up Michigan Avenue between Outer Drive and Brady in Dearborn and it’s as if the repairs done just before winter never occurred. Making matters worse, repairs to the first repairs won’t be coming anytime soon. So this could get ugly . . . and fast, particularly since we have two more months of winter left.

When you combine those high weight truck limits with thawing and freezing, along with the poor upkeep of our roads, you get the surfaces we have today. Drive along roads where heavy trucks don’t travel and the roads are typically in better condition.

Yet, road commissioners from Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties in the Detroit Free Press article all point to the weather as the main culprit.

• “It’s not a very good situation,” Lorenzo Blount, Wayne County roads division director, said last week. “It’s been a very cold winter. If it gets warm really quickly, you get that freeze-thaw, and it gets ugly.”
• “It’s just been so cold so long,” Bob Hoepfner, highway engineer for the Road Commission of Macomb County said. “When the ground thaws, that’s really when we’re going to see the breakup of our roadways.”
• Craig Bryson, spokesman for the Road Commission for Oakland County, said a series of wicked freeze-thaw cycles could make the pothole situation worse than last year’s prodigious crop.

Declining gas-tax revenues means Michigan’s funding for construction and maintenance of expressways and major state roads has dwindled to about $900 million in 2009, from highs of around $1.5 billion earlier this decade, according to the Free Press.

County and local road agencies also are falling farther behind because their primary sources of road funding – state fuel taxes and vehicle registration fees – have been steadily declining for several years. 

A task force appointed by Gov. Jennifer Granholm concluded last fall that the state needs an additional $3 billion a year to get all state and local roads into good shape. That’s about double what’s currently being spent statewide.

And we can forget about our state roads getting relief from President Barack Obama’s new stimulus package. As it stands now, the money can’t be used for routine maintenance like pothole patching.

Strap in. Our daily drives unfortunately are going to get a lot worse before we see any real road repairs.