Deteriorating conditions at many dallas fire stations

Tag : Veneer Door

At Station 4, faulty plumbing routinely sends raw sewage gushinginto the city streets. At Station 43, the mess is worse – itrises through drains in the floors, stinking up bathrooms andcovering them with a layer of waste.
At Station 3, home of the city's hazardous materials team,firefighters say fetid air from the mildew-infested, frequentlyflooded basement rises through a vent into their kitchen. AtStation 11, designated a historical landmark, the crankyair-conditioning system often leaves firefighters baking in the hotfirehouse during the long Texas summers.
"There's other city buildings that are in worse shape, but there'sno other city building where people have got to live there 24 hoursa day," said Station 11's Capt. Rett Blankenship.
Dallas' fire stations have fallen victim to years of shoestringbudgets and staffing cutbacks that have left city maintenanceworkers overwhelmed, understaffed and unable to meet the repairdemands of more than 500 city buildings, city officials said.Requests for repairs, minor and major, sent to the city's Equipmentand Building Services go undone – sometimes for years –as roughly 1,500 firefighters make do at stations across the city.Some firefighters even do painting and remodeling themselves.
Big D already spends 45 percent less on average on building upkeepthan comparable cities, according to a 2006 benchmarking reportconducted by the International City/County Management Association.
And an already-grim situation may get worse: The recentmultimillion-dollar budget crunch has the city considering slashingthe building upkeep budget 52 percent. Half of 144 staff positionscould be cut. Half of all work orders would be delayed.
City Manager Mary Suhm said she is going to do everything she canto fully fund the building upkeep budget.
"It's absolutely essential that we find the money to maintain themaintenance budget," Ms. Suhm said.
"It would be good to invest even more money in the maintenance ofour buildings because we are behind. [The condition of the city'sbuildings] is lower than the standard that I would expect them tobe and that the taxpayers would expect them to be."
A 2006 bond election provided more than $45 million to replace fiveaging fire stations, to add an additional fire station and toexpand another.
But 23 stations were built before 1968. And five others will soonreach their 40th birthday – near the end of the lifespan fora building that doesn't undergo massive restoration.
Based on conservative estimates, the cost to replace thosebuildings will easily surpass $100 million, city figures show.
When he arrived in Dallas more than two years ago, Chief EddieBurns was dismayed at the conditions.
"The firefighters have taken care of the facilities as well as theycould," Chief Burns said. "We're way behind on maintenance issues."
A city survey last summer provides a snapshot of the shabbyconditions. The leaky roofs. The sagging foundations. The rottingwood. The plumbing problems.
"We've had stations that have four, eight, 10, 12 people a dayworking out at the station and they only have one working shower,"said Capt. Mike Buehler, a former president of the firefightersassociation.
"We have stations that have holes in the walls where they've comeout and fixed plumbing problems but have never fixed the hole inthe wall after they fixed the plumbing problem. We have stationsthat have a waterfall inside every time it rains."
Station 4 is an Eisenhower administration-era structure near therelatively new Jack Evans Police Headquarters. Firefightersassigned to the boxy brown brick firehouse that responds to DallasCity Hall emergencies can still slide down a second-floor pole.
Firefighters keep the station neat and tidy. But cleanliness can'tobscure the building's deficiencies.
A leaky roof bedevils them, though it is among 18 stations slatedto receive $2.75 million in new roofs since the 2006 bond election.Army-green asbestos tiles line the second floor, where firefighterssleep on old mattresses atop institutional-style beds.
The exterior bedroom shutters won't budge, and neither do most ofthe bedroom windows in the unventilated upstairs. The gutters leak,causing the wood to rot around the eaves.
The ancient air-conditioning system often goes on the fritz. Atmany stations, firefighters have purchased window units. Bedrooms,offices and the garage haven't been painted in at least 15 years.
Firefighters, a special breed brave enough to run into fires whenothers flee them, seem resigned to their living conditions.
"You just get to the point where you just make do," says Fire andRescue Officer Robert Simons, a 22-year veteran who has spent mostof his career at Station 4.
Ten miles away near Love Field, at Station 43, the sewer backups inthe bathroom aren't likely to end any time soon because cityworkers have told them it would require tearing up the floors tofix the plumbing.
"It takes an act of Congress to get something fixed," firefighterEd Levell lamented. "When we call in with something that's broke,they'll send out two men in a truck and they say, 'Yep, it'sbroke.' We don't need anyone to confirm that it's broke. We knowit's broke."
For months after workers fixed another plumbing problem, a gapinghole exposed piping in a bathroom shower stall. After numerousrepair requests, city workers patched the hole with a vinyl sheetand screws.
In the kitchen, a ceiling tile recently fell on Mr. Levell's headas the nearly 30-year veteran washed dishes. "It cut my neck," hesaid.
The elements have so weather-beaten the back door that its exteriorveneer has separated from the door and flops in the wind.
Sometimes the station's emergency generator works. Sometimes itdoesn't – a concern given that the fire station wouldn't havea way to know about emergency calls if the power went out.
"Around here, something is always breaking," Lt. DianaMartinez-Ball said.
Meanwhile, firefighters at tiny 55-year-old Station 35 looklongingly across Walnut Hill Lane at the spacious new brick stationwith stone accents that is under construction. The garage alonewill be more than half the size of the old station.
The existing Station 35 comes complete with leaking urinals,molding vents in the sleeping quarters, rotting kitchen countertopsand petite plastic shower stalls that require some largerfirefighters to shower in stages.
"I've been here for 20 years, and for 20 years when we called tocomplain about things, they said we were going to get a new firestation," said Tracy Landess, a 25-year veteran. "It took 20 years,but now we're getting a new fire station."
"We're going from the streets to the Taj Mahal," said firefighterJames Hill, a 33-year veteran.