By Victoria St. Martin
Times-Picayune (New Orleans)
Copyright 2006 The Times-Picayune Publishing Company
After years of waiting to complete renovations to modernize and expand the Garyville fire station, officials said they must wait some more, thanks to skyrocketing construction prices in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
The last phase of the project hit a road bump in early 2005, due to an increase in the cost of construction supplies. And then came the storm, pushing construction prices ever higher.
The Historic West Street station has about $600,000 budgeted for the project, but the renovation costs have doubled, said Paul Oncale, director of public safety.
“I want to see it done, but it’s not like the town is without fire protection,” he said. “The renovation is for the future, but residents are safe. Without the new facility, fire protection will not change with the existing facility.”
Oncale said plans for the renovation, which would expand a 1,200-square-foot building built in 1959 to a 5,600-square-foot, two-story building, were designed by an architect almost 10 years ago when the department first considered renovating the station. Prior to the storm, in June 2005, the lowest bid still put the project over budget and Oncale had to ask the Parish Council to authorize a redesign.
The fire station expansion is one of many projects being financed through a $1.3 million bond issue approved in December 2004.
The renovation, which would include administrative offices, a dorm, meeting/training area and a kitchen, is necessary for the station to “grow with the future, especially when we go around the clock,” Garyville Fire Chief Faron Duhe said.
Duhe said Hurricane Katrina has forced up the prices on material, making the same project cost roughly $1.2 million today.
No plans for going to the council for more money have been discussed, Oncale said last week.
Along with Parish Councilman Allen St. Pierre, Duhe said he recently talked with a plant manager from the Marathon Petroleum Co. refinery. Duhe said the company may donate $20,000 for up to three years, not exceeding $60,000, toward the project.
Duhe said Marathon’s contribution hinges on his getting other donations, and he wants other businesses in the fire district to donate money.
“I have been here for 27 years and this is my dream. It’s my last big project before retiring from the department,” said Duhe, who joined the department in May 1979.
Firefighters currently use an electric warmer, a small stove and a mircofridge in the station’s communication room as a standing kitchen, he said, and hold meetings inside the old apparatus building.
“This (renovation) is needed, desired and wanted,” said Jacques Montz, captain of the fire department. “It’s just getting too tough to operate like we are.”
Kathy Duhon, daughter of Garyville’s first fire chief and secretary to Duhe, said the current set-up at the station makes her job and the jobs of the department’s 15 firefighters “inconvenient.” Duhon travels with boxes from the River Road substation to protect confidential files and because there isn’t a dormitory in the station, she said the firefighters slept on the tiled floor of the communications room during Hurricane Katrina.
Duhe said he wishes to finish the station’s renovations by the department’s 50th anniversary, in August 2007.
“Everyone’s been waiting for a long time to see this,” he said. “I hope I can make it happen for them.”