In five years, officials expect calls to almost double, Georgetown Fire Chief John Sullivan said during a Feb. 25 Georgetown City Council workshop.
How we got here
The GFD and Williamson County Emergency Services District work together to provide services to the greater Georgetown area. Combined, the two entities serve 140,000 people, Sullivan said during his presentation to council.
By 2030, he estimates Georgetown’s population will exceed 200,000 people and calls for fire department service will increase to 29,624.
“That's almost doubling the number of calls,” Sullivan said. “We can't do that necessarily with the same number of resources.”
Between the seven fire stations in Georgetown, about 19,900 people are served per station. If no additional station is added by 2030, that number will increase to about 30,000 people per fire station.
“That’s not really a doable mix,” Sullivan said. “It's far too many people for us to have emergency service providers to respond to.”
Ideally, the department will use a phased approach over the next 5-10 years to add additional stations when needed, he said. If the city reaches a population of 210,000 by 2030, two additional fire stations would allow for 23,000 people to be served per station, Sullivan said.
A closer look
With five total ambulances, Sullivan said data shows officials have anywhere from a 20%-60% chance of running out of ambulances throughout the week. The last year Emergency Medical Services and GPD each received a new ambulance or fire engine was in 2021, he said.
“This isn't unique to just Georgetown,” Sullivan said. “This is happening in the entire region where ambulances—[there’s] not enough of them to care for the 911 calls.”
To combat the shortage, Sullivan said his team is actively working on:
- Call avoidance options
- Wall time, or the amount of time the department spends transitioning patients to physicians at hospitals
- Collaborating with private partners for transportation alternatives, such as helicopters
Since 2023, EMS demand is up by 9%, Sullivan said. Data shows medical service calls are exceeding the calls for all other types of services.
Additionally, the demand is growing faster than Georgetown’s population growth, which is in part due to the city’s senior population, he said.
“I think you're hard pressed to find anywhere in the state of Texas that has a community that has as many people over the age of 60 as we do,” Sullivan said. “We're right around the 30% mark.”
The increased demand is in part due to the rise of multifamily properties and long term care facilities throughout Georgetown, Sullivan said.
Also, EMS is consistently at a 40%-45% rate of utilization during the busiest time of the day—from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.—but Sullivan said ideally, the team’s utilization rate should be closer to 25%-30%.
Measuring the impact
The department responded to 13,590 emergent response calls for service, which includes active fires, extricating people with vehicles and responding to individuals having chest pains or strokes.
Sullivan said the department has a nine minute response time goal because unchecked fires can double in size each minute, and severe brain damage could occur after nine minutes. Out of the 13,590 emergent response calls, Sullivan said 3,959 exceeded nine minutes.
From a 911 call to arriving at the scene, the nine minute goal can be broken down as follows:
- One minute: facilities process a call and notify emergency services
- Two minutes: the appropriate department is notified of the emergency
- Six minutes: the department arrives at the scene
“To get an ‘A’ grade in the city—meaning that we're getting there in nine minutes, 90% of the time—we can't do that,” Sullivan said. “What I can say is that we're doing it an average of the time.”
Remember this?
In November, voters approved a proposition to increase sales tax in Georgetown's extraterritorial jurisdiction by 2% and allocate the funding towards Williamson County ESD 8.
Sullivan said the revenue is expected to bring an additional $4.5-$5 million per year to ESD 8, which will help with the department’s future build-out.
Looking ahead
Since 2020, the department has struggled with staffing shortages and hiring challenges, Sullivan said. Now, Sullivan said they’re attempting to bring in people with limited experience to have a more diverse workforce.
“We're now in a much better spot,” Sullivan said. “We implemented what's called single rule paramedic positions, and we moved to a 48 hour schedule.”
Moving forward, Sullivan said he expects to lose about 10 people per year due to retirements, attrition and other factors. Sullivan said his team will continue analyzing the health and work life balance of firefighters and EMS staff.
