That's right, the traditional pole that firefighters slide down on their way to an emergency call. Fire Station No. 1 will have two of them. Padding on the ground floor will protect people, who are sometimes groggy from waking up, from injuring themselves. "It's the fastest way to get downstairs," Bowen said.

The old station on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard was built in the 1950s and the design limited some of the more advanced capabilities available today. One of the biggest improvements to the new fire station is the enhanced technology, Bowen said. They're going from chalkboards to Smart boards, and from spotty connection to a strong WiFi connection throughout the building.

 

"We are able to provide this funding, for the next 15 years, without jeopardizing at all the needs of the Hatfield Fire Company, or the contribution to the day to day needs of both fire companies," said commissioners' President Tom Zipfel.

Over the past several years, Hatfield has set up a fire commission dedicated to identifying short- and long-term needs for both the Hatfield and Colmar fire companies, and allocating funds to do so. The township's fire tax millage currently generates roughly $520,000 of revenue each year, and of that total $320,000 is split between the two companies for operational needs and the remaining $200,000 each year is put into a capital reserve fund.

Last year, the company and township began talks in earnest about a future Colmar fire station, to be built on the same site as the current station on Walnut Street. Zipfel and fire company President Brian Seward said that station was largely built in the 1940s with the most recent renovations in the 1960s.

In their initial talks, the company had developed an estimate of roughly $3 million to construct a new station. Since then, Zipfel and Sward told the commissioners Nov. 16, that estimated price tag has been whittled down to roughly $2.8 million, and the company is already starting to plan how to offset its part of those costs.

The Hilton Central School District, where Cook attended middle school, released a statement saying the teen was “a wonderful student with a heart of gold.”

Neighbors say they often see people walking, running or biking along the road where Cook was killed. They say the sidewalk ends before the accident happened and the posted speed limit of 35 miles per hour is often ignored.

"Just the thought of people crossing and how fast the cars can be going, people can really get moving,” Kevin Dailor said.

Police have not yet said what Cook may have been doing at the time of the accident or if speed was considered a factor.

About 10 new fire trucks and a dozen ambulances are still on their way to St. Louis.

Jenkerson just got back from Denver Colorado where he was consulting with the designers of the two rescue squads they’ve ordered.

“One of the unique situations at the St. Louis City Fire Department’s in is, all of our firehouses are fairly old,” Jenkerson says. “So, the average fire truck doesn’t always fit in the openings that we have…there’s a little modification that’s required.”

He says it takes roughly 300 days to build a fire truck from scratch, so they should show up next year, along with several new ambulances.