By Jay Ermis
Managing Editor
HUNTSVILLE — Three structures will be torn down in the near future to make room for the expansion of the Huntsville Public Library at 1216 14th St.
The three buildings — all located adjacent to the library — include the Huntsville Fire Department’s old Fire Station No. 1; the EMS Central Station; and the former headquarters of the Huntsville Police Department and most recently used by Huntvsille’s Promise.
Huntsville-Walker County EMS director John Nabors wants the EMS Central Station relocated to another area in downtown Huntsville behind the Walker County Annex off Sam Houston Avenue.
Nabors gave the Walker County Commissioners Court a review of the EMS assessment needs at the court’s March 8 meeting.
Nabors covered the start of the Huntsville-Walker County EMS in October 1975; how it became a county department in October 2003; and the eventual move of the EMS administrative offices from the Central Station at 1319 Avenue M to the fire department’s new Fire Station No. 4 at 1619 State Highway 30 East.
The new fire station is scheduled to be completed in June by Teal Construction of Houston and will also house fire department offices.
Nabors said funeral homes were the first providers of emergency medical services with the city providing services after that and then county.
With the current EMS Central Station scheduled to close in June, Nabors said he does not want to leave the downtown area without EMS service.
He proposes building a Central Station in an area behind the annex where county vehicles are parked.
Nabors said construction of the new station would not have to cost more than $125,000 for what the EMS would need to have located there.
His proposal for a new downtown station includes a maintenance room, main medical supply room, addition of a supervisor’s office, records facility room and “it does not have to be a million dollar station to operate.”
Nabors said “I need to add some sort of station that would address the maintenance room, the medical supply room and addition of a supervisor’s office” and that would be in the form of a new Central Station.
The station would also have a crew room, day room and kitchen/report writing room.
Nabors said that prior to Huntsville voters approving a bond issue to expand and renovate the public library, his plans were to keep the Central Station open and close the EMS South Station located off state Highway 19 because the crew area at that site is in very poor condition.
Since the current Central Station — built in 1985 — will give way to the library expansion, it will move to the new fire station as of July and will be known as the EMS Northeast Station.
Nabors said the South Station will need to remain open until a new Central Station in downtown could be built.
“Three stations in Huntsville are needed,” he said. “If we add the additional multi-purpose truck, I would still need three stations to where we have four 911 trucks and move the fourth 911 truck to a countywide department.”
He said the EMS call volume within the city is 62 percent with calls increasing from 3,754 in 1997 to 5,866 in 2009 and 1997 was the last time a 911 ambulance was added.
“Now, 12 years later, we are up 2,000 more calls per year than we were at in 1997,” Nabors said. “A truck can generally handle about a 1,500 to 2,000-call increase before we have to add an additional truck.
“We’re at a point now where our 911 calls are starting to hold and the calls-holding and transfer truck when they’re in town are able to back us up. All of those calls are increasing.
“This is reason I say we are in the need for a transfer truck.”
The Huntsville-Walker County EMS original station was a mobile home until the current headquarters and administrative building was constructed in 1985 on Avenue M and built adjacent to the old Fire Station No. 1.
The old Fire Station No. 1, located at the corner of Avenue M and 14th Street, was constructed in the mid-1950s, moving from the original site on 11th Street across from what is now the Walker County Criminal District Attorney’s Office.
The station on 14th Street had five back-end bays, housing a rescue truck, tanker, mini-pumper and engine.
Huntsville Fire Chief Tom Grisham said the fire department was chartered in 1926 and received its first fire truck in 1928.
Fire Station No. 1 remained active and housed firefighting equipment and firefighters until mid-2007 when it was relocated to the new Fire Station No. 1 off Veterans Memorial Parkway.
The old HPD headquarters near the library was built in the 1950s.
The current EMS Central Station has three ambulance bays, houses a full-time ambulance and crew and houses the EMS administration offices.
The new EMS Northeast Station will house administration offices, one 911 ambulance and crew, one ambulance and two-vehicle deep bay.
“The main reason I wanted to do this presentation was to outline a needs assessment for EMS,” Nabors said told the five-member court. “Our needs assessment is, in my opinion there are a couple of needs, but the main one is we are at a point where we need to add another ambulance, another crew.
“Call volume-wise we need to add another crew. We’re stacking calls, waiting on calls as far as calls holding.”
Nabors said a crew consists of a paramedic and an EMT basic for three shifts, employing six people and one ambulance.
Nabors said adding another crew would provide a full-time EMS in New Waverly to help decrease response times to residents.
He said the additional crew would backup 911 and also would backup the transfer unit to help catch lost transfers.
“We are losing about one transfer a day just because our transfer truck is on another transfer,” Nabors said. “It would help to catch another transfer or two where we could actually utilize the revenues generated form them help pay for it.
“The crew would also be set aside to handle all TDCJ calls. This additional truck with crew would be a multi-purpose ambulance to where they could handle all TDCJ calls from the seven units in the county. They are very time-consuming.”
Nabors said the needs assessment report calls for a new county based station, placing a crew and ambulance in the county — one south or one north — and it can be adjoined to an existing bay space at a county volunteer fire department station and help decrease response times.
Nabors also looks at stations in Riverside/Dodge and Crabbs Prairie.
“So this is the future in my opinion where we will need to go at some point,” he said. “Not all at one time. Right now we are covering all 802 square miles with three ambulances.”
Nabors said response times would drop tremendously with county-based stations.
