A MO fire truck almost encountered a head-on collision on a rural highway Friday afternoon.

According to a Facebook post by the Ebenezer Fire Protection District, the fire truck was traveling north on H Highway just north of State Highway AA after the crew had responded to a medical call.

“Our truck was traveling 53 mph in a 55 mph zone when it had to defensively avoid a head-on collision from a car passing traffic in the other lane. With your volume up, you can hear the screeching tires as this was very close to a collision!

“If you witnessed this incident or have any information on this vehicle please feel free to pass it along to us.

“This a reminder to always pay attention and drive safe!”

Dan Sokil
The Reporter
(TNS)

Mar. 23—UPPER GWYNEDD — Where could a new fire station for the Upper Gwynedd Township Fire Department go? And are there other options the department and township should consider?

The answers to those questions are coming into focus, with key recommendations made in a study presented to the township’s commissioners on Tuesday night.

“If you’re going to build a fire station, it’s a very sizable investment, in terms of money and time. And you want to make sure, before you do that, our first recommendation is that you reach out to your neighbors, to make sure that there either is, or isn’t, any interest in having a regional approach to fire protection” said longtime firefighter and study author Robert Hedden.

“You should really communicate, on a governmental level, with the surrounding townships and boroughs to see if there’s any interest in a regional fire department,” he said.

In March 2022 the fire company’s leadership asked the township commissioners to approve a study examining options for a new station, citing aging infrastructure, a need for more space, and stricter standards for equipment, training, and maintenance at their current station, located on Garfield Avenue and parts of which date as far back as 1942.

At that time the company said they were looking at several possible sites for a new station, and later that month the commissioners approved a contract with the state Governor’s Center for Local Government Services to perform a study. Officials from the center visited the township in August, and in January 2023 the township said the study was under final vetting.

That study was finally presented on Tuesday night by Hedden, a longtime Montgomery Township firefighter now with the Governor’s Center, who summarized the 30-page report to the township commissioners. In a series of meetings and in-person visits, the study group gathered data from the fire company and township staff about their service area, calls, staffing, and the sites they’re considering for a potential new station.

“They suggested several sites, and we included also the existing site, in case there was just some reason that it was determined the fire department should continue to operate out of there,” Hedden said.

Consider regionalizing

Prior to making a decision on a new station, the expert told the board, his recommendation is that the township and fire company consider options for regionalizing, due to issues seen across the state with firefighters aging out of local departments and few new recruits.

“If you go through that process, and it’s determined that yes, there is (interest), then we’re available to come back and do a regional fire study. Or if there isn’t, then we have a recommendation where the ideal station would be, in Upper Gwynedd, based on the sites we were asked to evaluate,” Hedden said.

Four locations were vetted by the study: the current fire station site on the 600 block of Garfield Avenue, a site on the 1600 block of West Point Pike, and two adjacent sites at the intersection of Allentown Road and Sumneytown Pike on the west and east corners. The study first eliminated the West Point Pike site due to its location within a floodplain zone, and based on several criteria spelled out in the report, including access to main roads and the rest of the township, the study commission honed in on one site.

“We suggest that the best location out of the sites would be the west corner of Allentown and Sumneytown Pike, it’s an 11.8-acre lot,” Hedden said.

“The location is optimal: it’s nearly centrally lo

James Beaty
McAlester News-Capital, Okla.
(TNS)

Mar. 23—McAlester City Manager David Andren’s initial Capital Improvements Plan includes a list of potential projects and their costs.

Andren has already said there’s not enough money available to cover everything included in the plan.

If everything on the list were fully funded, it would total $27,323,800 for the 2023-2024 Fiscal Year alone — an amount that Andren said it is not available to fully fund everything in the plan.

At the request of McAlester city councilors, Andren is compiling another report, this time with his and city staff’s input on what the city’s top CIP priorities should be.

Here are some of the original numbers, as presented to city councilors before they requested the report be further prioritized.

Possible projects for the 2023-2024 Fiscal Year which begins July 1, 2023 and extends through June 30, 2024, include:

Fire department priorities:

—$350,000 fire engine, the city’s portion, possibly delivered in Fiscal Year 2025.

—$15,000 digital radios.

—$7,000 stair chairs, which can be used to carry individuals down staircases during emergency evacuations.

___

(c)2023 the McAlester News-Capital (McAlester, Okla.)

Visit the McAlester News-Capital (McAlester, Okla.) at mcalesternews.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Gavin Stone
The Virginian-Pilot
(TNS)

Norfolk’s Fairmont Park neighborhood will soon have a “state-of-the-art” fire station to take the place of its current one, which was built in 1925.

Fire Chief John DiBacco said the old Fire Station 11 building, situated on Verdun Avenue almost inconspicuously among houses roughly the same size and style — apart from the big red trucks in the garage — has served the community “with pride and dedication” over the years, but the neighborhood has outgrown it.

“Streets are getting narrower as the houses are getting larger, public service vehicles have grown in size as well, new utility lines and public services compete for limited space between homes, the sidewalks and the roadways,” DiBacco told the audience of public officials and community members present for the new station’s groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday morning. “Over the years the demand for service has increased, and Norfolk Fire & Rescue has answered the call continuously for the last century from our home on Verdun Avenue.”

“Now it’s time for a well-deserved improvement for both our citizen neighbors and our firefighters,” he added.

The new station will be at 2601 Lafayette Blvd., a vacant lot just a block over from the current building, and its planned completion is April 2024. At a $7.1 million price tag for the full project, according to project manager John Alford, the building will be 14,000 square feet. Construction will begin within the next month.

In addition to a new building, Station 11′s firefighters will have a new fire engine at an $843,000 cost — already scheduled as part of the Fire & Rescue’s equipment replacement plan — and an additional response unit comprised of another battalion chief and lieutenant to support the station’s EMS operations, city spokesperson Kelly Straub said in an email.

Because of its central location within the city, Station 11 has historically played a major supporting role in other districts. Its response area won’t change with the new building, according to Straub. It’s unclear whether the new facility and equipment will affect the department’s ISO rating, which helps determine the neighborhood’s insurance rate, when the city undergoes a new evaluation.

Among the new features are about a dozen separate bunks meant to help with sleep deprivation and the changing gender makeup of fire departments. The station is designed in a way to help prevent cancer among firefighters by allowing them to clean off before they return from a call, according to Mark Manetti, an architect and partner with BKV Group which designs fire stations across the country.

“We know that this fire station will be able to support this community for the next 20, 30, 40, 50 years — maybe even 100,” Manetti said.

The building will be two stories due to the space limitations on the 0.6-acre parcel, which means it must have a fire pole, according to Manetti. The community was consulted during the planning process, which resulted in several modifications — including a nautical touch to the design and a change to the orientation of the building to have the broad side running along Lafayette Boulevard. It will have folding doors opening onto Lens Avenue and Argonne Avenue on either side of the facility.

“We listened to some of the recommendations (that the communit