City officials are looking for the station to be completed at West Mound Road and Greenridge Drive, permanently replacing the Fire Station 5 on East Christine Drive, which is just north of Brettwood Village Shopping Center.  

Under the proposal, the contracting firm Christy-Foltz Inc. would oversee construction. The $2.7 million building is part of an $8 million city plan to build three new fire stations, the West Mound Road location being the first.

After hundreds of hours of research by firefighters in the department to compile its specifications and work with the manufacturer, a 2018 Sutphen fire engine is now in service and will be housed at Station 4 on Mt. Bethel Road.

The facility, which will be known as Fire Station No. 1, will be a 15,561 square-foot building designed as a hub for first responders with space for firefighter and emergency medical service training as well as programs and classes for the public. Fire Chief Rob Wight said the project will cost about $5.2 million, which will be covered by a levy passed last year.  

Ground-breaking for the facility is scheduled to take place at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the site of the former Lincoln Elementary School, 911 E. Third St., Monroe.

The station was designed by Redstone Architects of Bloomfield Hills and will be under the construction management of AUCH Construction of Pontiac. The current building, Chief Wight said, is 50 years old and can’t handle all of the training and programs that the fire department wants and needs to do.

The fire department’s contingent of firefighting vehicles such as ladder trucks and pumpers are perfectly adequate for dealing with a house fire but this deluge was something else completely. KFD trucks were simply not high enough.

 

A few hours later, Katy residents with boats began showing up at the station and offering to help. Wilson gladly took them up on the officer.

 

One resident with an airboat that can skim across the surface of the water told Katy officials one of his rescue missions in the Old Katy area was especially tough.