TX Firefighters Back at Stations after Last Year's Flooding

Beaumont firefighters assigned to Stations 5 and 10 are back at home base just over a year after being forced out by floodwaters from Tropical Depression Imelda.

Fire Chief Earl White said both buildings, at 6375 Walden Rd. and 3855 Washington Blvd., had to be gutted and totally redone after the flood. In the meantime, firefighters were working from other nearby stations.

RELATED: Tropical Storm Imelda's Remnants Soak Southeast TX

"It's been pretty tight quarters for about a year now," he said. "The guys are pretty happy to be able to spread out again."

The work across the two stations totaled nearly $234,000 — a fraction of the $2.8 million expended for Imelda emergency response and damages as of August, Beaumont Chief Financial Officer Todd Simoneaux said. Just under $60,000 of the cost to repair the fire stations was covered by insurance, he said.

At this time, it does not appear Beaumont or any of the other cities and counties impacted by Imelda will be reimbursed by the federal government — one of most destructive storms local officials have seen that hasn't also warranted a public assistance declaration.

Much talk about recovery from Imelda and Tropical Storm Harvey has centered around infrastructure to deliver fresh water and whisk away flooding. But the fact that firefighters couldn't work from two fire stations for more than a year because of flooding begs the question of what can be done to make facilities like these more resilient?

The stations were two of seven city facilities flooded by Imelda, Beaumont Facilities Director Keith Folsom said. The Botanical Garden Center, now in the "finishing stages," will be the last facility to be fixed.

Fire Station 5 is the only fire station to have flooded twice, Folsom said.

"We're still trying to find ways to go with a little different concepts to be good stewards of the taxpayers' dollars in case it floods again," White said.

This time around, that meant replacing furnishings with ones made of metal so that they don't have to be replaced should the stations flood again.

Any other improvements almost assuredly wouldn't have been covered by the federal government had the city been reimbursed for costs, Folsom said. He said he's heard of other facilities rebuilding with cinderblock instead of Sheetrock because it's easy to clean.

Unless FEMA specifically approves additional expenses to mitigate future flooding-related losses, it will pay only for facilities to be restored to their prestorm state.

"Most of those (improvements) you can only do in new facilities," he said. "On these facilities, there's not much that can be done. Other than trying to work on area drainage, there's not a lot of remediation that we can do to prevent them from flooding again."

Regardless, White said the recent storm experiences has prompted the fire department to put extra personnel on duty and the dive rescue team on standby when a storm approaches that has the potential to cause flooding.

The department also switches to its reserve engines during flooding scenarios as to try to keep the newer, frontline engines out of harm's way. The stations also move furniture out the way of rising floodwaters.

"We've taken some proactive steps," he said. "But mostly we're keeping our fingers crossed. We just hope we don't have another 100-year flood in the next two years."

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