The money will be used to purchase bay doors, construct a driveway and a parking lot for the station, replace the roof on the house and add a brick facade to the bays, in addition to several other items.

The grant is made possible by the Faye and Lewis Manderson Fund and the DTS Fund, component funds of WACF that were established by Cordova natives after the April 2011 tornadoes for the city’s benefit.

Mayor Drew Gilbert submitted a funding request to WACF after announcing in February that the city had exceeded the $250,000 budget for renovating a former residence on School Street into a fire station and that an additional $90,000 was needed to make it operational.

The announcement that funding is now in place to complete a project that struggled to gain traction for several years following the 2011 storms came as welcome news to the city’s volunteer firefighters.

“We can finally have a home,” said Fire Chief Dean Harbison. “We’ve had five temporary sites since the tornadoes. Nothing has been permanent. Everything has been sort of duct taped together so we could use it.”