SAN ANTONIO -- There are dozens of double name roadways across San Antonio, like Day Road and Day Street. When a fire broke out at a home early Monday morning, a fire crew was dispatched to the wrong address on the opposite side of town.
Firefighters say it's just a matter of time before that kind of mistake ends in disaster.
A new crew was dispatched to the burning home. It took nearly 20 minutes for firefighters to arrive.
Luckily, the elderly couple who lived inside was able to make it out safely. But the home appears to be a total loss.
Marcelina Galvan watched as her neighbors' house went up in flames, and firefighters were nowhere in sight.
"I was calling 9-1-1 for a fire truck to come. They were telling me they already had someone on scene," explained Galvan. "I told them, no they're not here at the scene. I'm watching my neighbors' house burn down."
News 4 WOAI found out the mixup was caused by a dispatch problem. Fire officials say the computer-aided dispatch system didn't differentiate between Day Street and Day Road.
"Of course it worries us," commented Rodney Hitzfelder, Deputy Chief for the San Antonio Fire Department. "Anytime there's a delay in response, it concerns us... especially because of the additional loss to the public."
Hitzfelder said the Fire Department's average response time is just 4 minutes. That's far less than the 19 minutes it took firefighters to arrive at the burning East side home on Day Road.
"We'll be looking into exactly what caused the problem," commented Hitzfelder. "We'll try to see if it was an issue with training, or with the actual system itself."
Members of the San Antonio Firefighters Association told us this isn't the first time this kind of error has happened. They said the problems began in the summer when the department switched over to a new dispatch system.
Fire officials, however, say this is the first error of it's kind that they can prove.
