Fire Chief Who Didn’t Send Boats For Flood Victims Was DEI Hire
The article discusses the devastating floods in Central Texas Hill Country, which have resulted in at least 135 deaths, including many children at a Christian camp. The disaster quickly became politicized, with left-wing critics blaming disaster relief cuts and climate change-claims the article disputes-while right-wing observers saw it as an unavoidable tragedy. The core issue highlighted is the role of Austin Fire Department Chief Joel Baker, who reportedly failed to pre-deploy rescue teams despite warnings and opportunities, allegedly to save money, not realizing that such deployments would be state-reimbursed. This led to a vote of no confidence from the Austin Firefighters Association.
The article criticizes Chief Baker as an ineffective leader hired primarily for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) reasons rather than competence, echoing similar critiques of leadership failures in other cities like Los Angeles during recent fires. It portrays Austin as a liberal city influenced by leftist politics and trends, contributing to misguided priorities that compromise public safety. The article warns that prioritizing DEI over qualifications risks undermining vital institutions like fire departments, with perhaps deadly consequences. It calls for learning from these mistakes and questions whether Austin’s leaders will hold Baker accountable, unlike Los Angeles leadership that removed their fire chief after a similar crisis.
Similar to the flood itself, the tragedy of the high waters sweeping through the Central Texas Hill Country has violently ebbed and flowed from the public consciousness. At the last count, the death toll has reached 135 souls, at least a dozen of them little girls at a Christian camp.
True to the spirit of the times, the disaster soon degenerated into yet another game of partisan mudslinging.
Of course, leftists immediately blamed DOGE cuts to disaster relief and climate change, neither of which was true. As for those on the right, when they were not actively debunking these claims, most of them concluded that this was just one of those unavoidable evils that occur in a fallen world.
However, there happens to be more to this story that few people on either side seem to discuss. There actually was someone who could have intervened in time to save many of the victims: Austin’s Fire Department Chief Joel Baker.
According to a public comment from the Austin Firefighters Association (AFA), Chief Baker had several opportunities to “send life-saving swift water boat teams to pre-deploy to Kerrville during devastating flooding” but decided against this out of a “misguided attempt to save money.” Evidently, he didn’t understand that “the fire department is fully reimbursed by the state to deploy,” even when someone explained “this very simple concept” to him. As such, the AFA overwhelmingly affirmed a vote of no confidence in Baker.
The Austin Fire Department (AFD) spokesmen had little to say in response to this except that it was a difficult situation: “The decision about how to allocate resources to help our fellow Texans is not a simple one. It requires communication from public safety partners on the ground to ensure we are providing resources and personnel when, where and how they are most needed.”
Just to be clear, people in the AFD were aware of the potential of flooding in the Hill Country just west of the city (as there often is) and could have easily sent out rescue teams beforehand. But, from all available evidence, Chief Baker was too stupid to realize that he could have authorized the deployments and been reimbursed for it.
This prompts the question of how someone as incompetent as Chief Baker was hired to be the fire chief of one of Texas’ largest and fastest-growing cities in the first place. By now, the question answers itself: He was a DEI hire who would implement DEI-driven policies in the city’s fire department. According to a report from The Blaze, Baker was “touted as Austin’s ‘first African-American fire chief,’” and had “prioritized diversity and increasing the number of ‘minority applicants.’” Before leading the AFD, ”Baker spent three decades with the Atlanta Fire Rescue Department in Georgia, where he grew up.”
Were there not other seasoned candidates for fire chief who were actually from the area who could have done this job far better? The probable answer is that there were, but they weren’t black and didn’t signal their preference for diversifying the department. In all likelihood, they were probably interested in less politically important concerns like keeping people safe from fires and floods.
If this whole story sounds eerily similar to the fires that devoured the Pacific Palisades along with other communities near Los Angeles earlier this year, that’s because it is. In that case, it was a lesbian fire chief and her two lesbian deputies (all named forms of “Kristen”) who prioritized diversifying their staff and making embarrassing promotional videos over employing common-sense measures to keep residents and their expensive property safe from the large fires that flare up periodically in that part of California.
Some non-Texans may wonder how a city in the heart of a red state like Texas would follow the example as one of the most dysfunctional cities in the country. They should know that Austin, Texas, is the quintessential blue city, ever envious of the West Coast and eagerly adopting each new dumb trend from that part of the country. The city’s unofficial motto is “Keep Austin Weird,” which amounts to instinctively rejecting the very principles and policies that originally made it a bustling city. It also doesn’t help that Austin is especially attractive to Californian refugees who often bring their leftist politics with them.
And so the people of Austin had to learn the disastrous consequences of leftism the hard way — that is, if they learned anything at all from this horrific event. Currently, few people seem to know the real story behind the floods in Central Texas, so there has been little pressure to force out Chief Baker, who stubbornly refuses to step down or admit mistakes. At least Mayor Karen Bass and the city council in Los Angeles had the sense to remove their fire chief after the Palisades Fire. Will Austin’s Mayor Kirk Watson and Austin City Council do the same?
Based on the low level of public pressure, probably not. Apparently not getting the memo about wokeness being out of fashion and not bothering to learn the problems that come with entrusting such a massive responsibility to a man whose main qualification is seemingly being “diverse,” Austin’s residents will continue to vote against their own well-being and happily make Gov. Greg Abbott’s life miserable. All of this is deeply unfortunate, but somehow preordained for major cities captured by leftists (see New York City and its socialist mayoral frontrunner).
This means that it falls to the rest of us to learn from the mistakes of the AFD and its leadership. No city and its people are immune to the deleterious effects of elevating people based on the color of their skin and their leftist political views. Not only will DEI gradually destroy a critical institution of public safety, but at some point it will also destroy the lives that the institution is charged to protect.
Auguste Meyrat is an English teacher and freelance writer in the Dallas area. He is the founding editor of The Everyman, a senior contributor to The Federalist, and has written for essays for The American Mind, The Stream, Religion and Liberty, The Blaze, and elsewhere. He is also the host of “The Everyman Commentary Podcast.” Follow him on X.
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