A fire at 601 Warren St. in Burglund Wednesday night highlighted the need for a new east McComb fire station to replace the condemned Fire Station No. 3.
The fire came a day after Mayor Whitney Rawlings said at a city board work session that he wants to scrap plans for a new station due to a high price tag.
In responding to the fire, Fire Chief Stephen Adams said the stars aligned, and firefighters stationed downtown arrived in a matter of minutes. The call came in at 7:23 p.m., when there was little traffic and no train blocking the railroad tracks separating downtown from east McComb.
Adams said the fire occurred at a house that is believed to be vacant, although it appeared a squatter had been living there. That person was not in the building at the time of the fire.
The fire was fully involved when units arrived. Firefighters remained on the scene until 11:01 p.m. Adams said officials do not know of a cause yet and there were no injuries.
The current bid for a new station on East Michigan Avenue is a handsome $773,800, plus about $15,000 to demolish the existing building. With the city’s budget for the project around $350,000, the sum left board members reeling.
The lack of a fire station across the train tracks raises concern regarding response time. While Wednesday’s fire wasn’t an issue, Adams said there have been a few times lately when the Pearl River Avenue bridge has been closed for street work. And in one recent instance he said the bridge was closed and a train was on the tracks.
If an emergency should occur at such a time, response time to east McComb would be longer.
“It’s kind of hairy over there right now,” he said.
With too many projects and too little money in the capital improvement fund, City Administrator Quordiniah Lockley suggested in a previous meeting the city consider borrowing money to complete proposed projects.
In addition to the much-needed fire station, other projects include a planned traffic light and work around Anna Drive and the south I-55 exit. Plus, the city needs $32,000 to pay for engineering fees before it can use hazard mitigation funds from the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency to weatherproof Fire Station No. 4.
The proposed cost of Fire Station No. 3 and the suggestion to borrow money did not sit well with the mayor.
“We expect our city administrator to give us good advice. Ultimately, the voters have elected you,” Rawlings told the board.
Rawlings wants to meet with involved individuals and look into ways of restructuring the project or redesigning the building to lower the cost.
“I don’t want to see the board accept this project at this cost without exhausting all avenues trying to find a way of building this thing somewhere along the lines of what we can afford to build,” he said, calling the $770,800 quote “far too high.”
Selectman Michael Cameron suggested seeing if the city can obtain fire station plans and costs from other municipalities, giving the board “something we can comparatively look at.”
“We’re not building the wheel here,” he said. “I don’t know how you would go about that. I really don’t. But every single municipality has fire stations. They are building them or have built them.”
Rawlings answered, “Clearly, let’s look into it a little harder. Find more data. That’s what you’re saying.”
City officials have said one issue with McComb’s proposed fire station is a costly brick veneer the building would need in order to comply with city building codes.
Selectman Ronnie Brock pointed out that architect Steve Cox and Adams have said the proposed building is as basic as it gets.
“Didn’t we all sit here at the last meeting and hear from designer Cox and hear it was bare bones? So what are we going to do?” Brock asked.
Selectman-at-large Tommy McKenzie said the city mishandled the project by not assigning a budget, and officials are now suffering from “sticker shock.”
“We as a board faulted in not giving a budget,” he said. “I’ve asked why we didn’t design a $350,000 building and I got a response that they never worked to that budget. So I don’t know where the disconnect was.”
McKenzie said, in his opinion, to lower the cost substantially the current design will not work.
Lockley pointed out even to officially discuss redoing the project the current bids will have to be rejected.
While the board wrestles with a solution, Adams worries about serving citizens of east McComb, where the station closed earlier this year station. “Every time I hear a tone for that side of town it makes me nervous.”
