Browned out Friday were ladder companies in South Fairmount and Avondale, and engine companies in downtown, Oakley and Northside. Firefighters who reported to work on those companies were shifted to other assignments.

But delays in response time because of the brownouts will have dire effects on those communities and others, predicted Joe Diebold, president of Cincinnati Firefighters Local No. 48.

"The biggest job of government is the safety of its citizens," Diebold told about 20 residents at Avondale Pride Center at Forest and Burnet avenues.

"Once you lose that, you lose everything," he said. "This whole situation will cause us to sink further into the abyss as a city."

Leaders of the Northside and Avondale community councils called the meeting out of concern over the brownouts. They invited Diebold and Jeff Harris, former president of the Cincinnati African-American Firefighters Association, and other firefighters to explain how the brownouts work and what it means to their communities.

The residents who spoke out at the meeting were upset over the brownouts and felt poor, older neighborhoods were being targeted.

Residents late Friday formed a 20-step battle plan that includes circulating petitions and asking all of Cincinnati community-council presidents to appear at City Council's Law & Public Safety Committee meeting Tuesday.

E-mail jedwards@enquirer.com