Copyright 2006 The Times-Picayune Publishing Company
By Michelle Hunter
Times-Picayune (New Orleans)
The end to the nomadic days for the firefighters of Station 14 in Old Metairie is finally in sight.
The station at 1714 Edinburg St. was swamped by 4 feet of floodwater after Hurricane Katrina, sending the firefighters first to Station 11 at 3525 Jefferson Highway.
On Wednesday they returned to their coverage area, moving into a mobile home at Wally Pontiff Jr. Playground that will serve as a temporary firehouse until Jefferson Parish rebuilds their Old Metairie station a few blocks away.
The beginning of that final solution comes next month, when Station 14’s reconstruction goes out for bid: one of at least five East Bank Consolidated Fire Department capital projects to rebuild stations or construct them from scratch, officials said.
“We’re in our dynamic phase,” department spokesman George Rigamer said.
An awning has been set up at the playground to cover the station’s fire engine in stormy weather.
“They’re living in a trailer and we’d like to get them back into the station as quickly as possible,” said Rigamer, who estimated the project would cost about $1.7 million.
Going to bid in August is a plan to build a brand-new firehouse, Station 10, at Hudson and Glendale Streets near East Jefferson General Hospital. Once complete, it will be the 10th station in the department and will fill coverage gaps between Veterans Memorial Boulevard and Lake Pontchartrain in central Metairie. The new station also will help the department keep its Class 1 fire rating, which is based on several factors, including staffing and equipment, and means lower insurance premiums for homeowners.
The parish bought the property after a plan to put the station at Glendale and Clearview Parkway met with some resistance from neighbors, according to fire officials.
In the meantime, firefighters are almost ready to move into the gleaming new Station 15 on the north Interstate 10 service road between Oaklawn and Sena drives, according to Superintendent David Saunders. The two-story firehouse replaces the older Station 15 at 402 Aurora Ave., which was built in the 1920s and had cracks big enough to let light in through the walls. A few last-minute housekeeping details must be taken care of before firefighters start operating from the building sometime in July.
Saunders said the parish hasn’t decided what to do with the old Station 15. Officials are deciding whether the donated station will revert back to its previous owner or whether to turn it into a museum, he said.
Though Stations 16 and 17 in Metairie and Station 19 in Elmwood aren’t quite as old as the one-story Aurora Avenue firehouse, they also need some rehabilitation, Saunders said. But parish officials said they plan to demolish all three stations and rebuild them from the ground up.
“It’s just more cost-effective to do that than to try and deal with old plumbing and electrical systems and foundations that are sinking,” Rigamer said.
The new stations will feature structural designs like those at the new, larger Station 15, which has about 5,200 square feet of living space, bigger bays for firetrucks and better ventilation systems. But the facades can be easily modified to match the surrounding neighborhoods, Rigamer said. Because the stations share the same basic design, officials put their approximate costs at $1.7 million.
Plans for Station 17 at 6616 Kawanee Ave. will include a new maintenance center to replace the department’s older building at 3711 Division St. in Metairie. Station 19 will be the site of the parish’s East Bank Emergency Operations Center, Saunders said.
No construction dates have been set for Stations 16, 17 and 19.