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Firefighters Relocate To Museum

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By NICOLA M. WHITE, The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 25, 2008

ZEPHYRHILLS - The firefighters displaced from Wednesday's early-morning flood will temporarily relocate to a space even older than the fire station they had to vacate: a museum.

As the city rips up carpet, tears down drywall and assesses mold and mildew damage to the downtown fire station, those who used to work at Zephyrhills Fire Rescue Station No. 2 will be housed at the World War II Barracks Museum at the city airport.

City officials say the fire department will be housed there for at least a month. The building, which resembles a long trailer, served as barracks for fighter pilots training at the airport during World War II. It was turned into a museum in recent years.

Although it doesn't have bays for the firetrucks, the building has most of the components of a fire station, including office space, a kitchenette and rooms that can be turned into dormitories.

"It's got all of the amenities of the fire station except the mold and mildew of the one we have now," Chief Keith Williams said.

Off South Avenue, the museum offers a good location for the fire department, which one day hopes to open a new fire station on the south end of town, which is expected to grow in coming years.

Station No. 2, built in 1960 and the city's first and only fire station until 2000, flooded with about 4 inches of water early Wednesday morning when a fierce storm pounded the area.

Water gushed through downtown streets, closing many for hours. The rain also flooded city hall's parking lot and a basement storage space. Inside the fire station, the waterline reached the baseboards and destroyed carpet, furniture and office equipment.

Because the rain came so quickly, city workers did not have time to prepare for potential flooding. When hurricanes battered the region in 2004, the area near the fire station, which is at Sixth Avenue and Seventh Street, flooded; none of those floods were as severe as Wednesday's, though.

Officials still are assessing the damage. A city memo estimated the fire station damage at between $50,000 and $100,000, but city officials await estimates from insurance adjusters.

"It's quite a mess," Williams said. "By this morning, when you walked in there, you could smell the mold. It just stung your eyes."

The city's insurance carrier is expected to pick up the cost of the repairs, City Manager Steve Spina said.

Reporter Nicola M. White can be reached at (813) 779-4613 or nwhite1@tampatrib.com.

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