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New station to mean faster fire response
By CHRISTINA HEADRICK, Times Staff Writer CLEARWATER -- Fire Deputy Chief Charlie Flowers has a wall-sized, yellowed map of Clearwater in his office. Colorful lines are drawn all over the map like modern art, but the map is serious business. The lines indicate that northwest Clearwater -- spanning Stevenson Creek, North Greenwood and Glenwood -- suffers from response times of greater than five minutes from city fire stations. Five minutes is the time that emergency crews try to beat, because they have the best chance of knocking down a fire in its room of origin or saving a life in an emergency, according to national studies. "If you look at our city, it's pretty obvious there's a big hole right here," Flowers said, pointing to the northwest area, where times lag. Four years ago, an extensive review of the Clearwater Fire Department was critical of the "large coverage gap" in northwest Clearwater. Now the city is finally nailing down the details to build a station to improve emergency medical and fire responses to the area. Clearwater fire officials say they hope to break ground on the city's eighth fire station as early as this summer and have it ready by early next year. Fire Chief Rowland Herald says that building the station has been a goal in his quest to greatly improve the Fire Department's service. A combination of factors caused delays getting to this point. The future of the station was up in the air for several years as the city debated Fire Department funding. Then, in 2000, a task force of residents finally recommended the city budget Penny-for-Pinellas sales tax revenues to build the northwest station. However, the task force decided the city should build a new fire station on Sand Key first. Response times were worse on Sand Key -- about a minute and half longer on average -- than response times in northwest Clearwater, which were just over five minutes, according to department statistics at the time. Yet, northwest Clearwater had many more calls for service. (A call can be anything from an actual fire to a minor medical emergency to a car accident.) Last year, statistics show, Sand Key generated just 661 calls while northwest Clearwater had 2,071. That was 9 percent of the Fire Department's workload for 2001. Last year's average response time in northwest Clearwater was five minutes and 47 seconds, records show. Two quadrants within the area had average responses as high as seven to eight minutes. But Sand Key residents, who have a reputation as some of the city's most active voters, were extremely adamant in demanding the station be built in their area as soon as possible. Residents from northwest Clearwater weren't demanding. "Sand Key was always needed," said Jack Callahan, a former assistant fire chief. But the northwest station, he said, "was always the station needed most. Because of politics, they put the station on Sand Key first. At least, that was always my position." The city budgeted $2-million for the Sand Key station first, then put about $2-million into this year's and last year's budget to build the northwest station. The next hurdle for the northwest station was location. Despite a year of looking, fire officials say they have had trouble finding an appropriate site. The most recent possibility is at the corner of Betty Lane, about a block south of Sunset Point Road, near Calvin Hunsinger School. "It's only been a week or two since we came up with an option, but we're working on it," said R. Wayne Hanson, the city's fire support manager. "We are champing at the bit to build this station." Fire officials originally looked at city park property for the station, but were dissatisfied with the options. The city doesn't want its new station to be located too far into residential areas, Hanson explained. The ideal site is also a short distance from a major artery but not directly on the major artery, which allows for traffic signals to be wired to let engines through. Since late last summer, the city has focused on the school property, Hanson said. Fire officials at first thought the ideal location for a new station would be a few blocks south of Sunset Point Road on Kings Highway, but in December they discovered that spot was in a flood zone and unsuitable for a new station. For the past two weeks, Hanson said, he has been looking at the other area on school property, near Betty Lane. Testing has to be done to see if the ground there can support the weight of a fire station and engines, Hanson said. Then both the school system and the city will have to formally okay the project. The city already bought a fire engine for the new station and plans to hire eight firefighters at the end of the year, so that the city will have the 10 firefighters needed to staff the new station, Herald said. The St. Petersburg Times spoke with several residents living in the northwest Clearwater area who were surprised to learn that Fire Department response times to their neighborhoods were slower than in other parts of the city. They also hadn't heard about plans for the new station. But when told about it, they supported it 100 percent. "Anything that enhances a service this critical should be done," said Mayme Hodges, a longtime North Greenwood resident and former city commissioner. "That's a good thing if there's a feeling that it's necessary." Mayor Brian Aungst and city commissioners, who approved the Sand Key fire station being built first, said that they want to see the northwest station built as soon as possible. "Overall what we've heard from the community is that public safety is the principal priority of Clearwater citizens," Commissioner Bill Jonson said. "We're trying to be very faithful to those commitments."
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