Former Pensacola City Council President Maren Deweese reported yesterday that Fire Station 3 that’s located on Summit Boulevard has been evacuated. She wrote that station was closed “due to a health related issue that developed in a firefighter that was believed to be due to the environment at Station 3.”
City PIO Vernon Stewart told Inweekly, “Firefighters are moving out of Fire Station 3 today so that the station can be cleaned starting Monday. The cleaning will target the mold in the station. It is being done based on the recommendation that came from an earlier inspection report.”
In early January, Mayor Ashton Hayward said he would request the Pensacola City Council to approve spending around $3 million in Local Option Sales Tax money to replace the station by 2017. The council approved the request in February.
Mold has been an issue at Fire Station No. 3 for years. In 2011, Mayor Hayward commissioned Bullock Tice Associates to survey the current conditions of the fire station that had been in service for 37 years at the time. The engineers found mold on the interior due to water intrusion. It recommended that a special mold abatement team be brought in during the proposed renovation of the facility.
If the city chose to forgo the renovations, Bullock Tice estimated the cost to build a new station was only $1.4 million with an additional $500,000 for site work.
Mayor Hayward did not add the fire station to city’s next four budgets (FY 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016) over the objections of Maren Deweese, who served the neighborhoods covered by the station until Andy Terhaar was elected in 2014.
Over the five-year period, the cost to do any work on the station increased by about a million dollars. The mold conditions worsened, and the health of the firefighters was put at risk.