Residents in the small town of Cary and surrounding Sharkey County will get fire protection this year, as the county is set to receive $109,000 in rural development funds to help purchase a much-needed fire truck.   

Cary Mayor Robert Seaton said the aging fire truck currently used by the 10-member volunteer fire department “runs when it wants to.” Often used is a mobile tanker truck, which can be filled with 1,000 gallons of water for county fires and attached to fire hydrants in the city.

“We’ve been needing a new fire truck for at least the last three or four years,” said Seaton. “When there’s a fire it might make it and it might not; we never know.”

Had the fire department had the proper equipment, Seaton said, a number of buildings and homes in the city and county destroyed by fire in recent years could have been saved. The new fire truck will cost $168,000, and Seaton said it will be ordered as soon as the $109,000 in federal funds is received — which he estimated will be “just a matter of days.”

The most recent census numbers show 427 people live in Cary and 6,580 in Sharkey.

*

Contact Steve Sanoski at ssanoski@vicksburgpost.com