CAPE CORAL, Fla. — Cape Coral Fire Department Station 10 in North Cape Coral brings a whole new meaning to a friendly neighborhood fire station. The converted 4-bedroom home has been a staple of the community since 2008, but in the wake of Hurricane Ian, the fire department is looking to construct a new, larger station 10.
Station 10 was originally supposed to be the temporary location for the firehouse but turned into a semi-permanent due to the 2008 Financial Crisis. Like many homes after Ian, Station 10 had significant roof damage, water damage, and more, forcing the firefighters to relocate for nearly a month post-storm.
“We thought it was one of our safer stations because it is high and dry, but it’s actually a station we had to be temporarily relocated out of because it is a residential house,” said Cape Coral Fire Chief Ryan Lamb. “It wasn’t built to as hard of standards as we build our normal fire stations too.”
Now in the wake of the storm, the department is now revisiting the construction of permanent Station 10.
“What we recognized now, and even before Ian, was a need for a fall-back place for the fire department,” said Chief Lamb. “So, when we have fire stations in some of those evacuation zones, where do we take our personnel and also our fire trucks? Fire trucks are very expensive and take a long time to build, so we want to protect those assets.”
The future Station 10 if approved will be constructed about a mile and a half down the road in what is now an open field, near Averill Blvd and Del Prado Blvd.
Like the current Station 10, the potential new location would be the only fire station in Cape Coral not located in a Special Flood Hazard Area. While none of the Cape Coral stations were impacted by the storm surge during Ian, many local stations were.
“Station 1, our downtown station, had water very close to beginning to inundate that building,” said Chief Lamb. “So that is one of our concerns that we have seen other fire departments from Hurricane Ian that have received significant damage from storm surge and actually lost trucks based off that.”
Chief Lamb says the newly planned Station 10 will be bigger than a typical firehouse because it will be able to house public safety, public works, and utilities personnel and equipment when evacuations are necessary from other stations. It will also have a fire station safe room that could act as a satellite emergency operations center if needed.
“It’s always good to have redundancy, as we learned during Hurricane Ian things will fail and you need to have a secondary plan and even a third plan,” said Chief Lamb.
That safe room outside of an emergency would be available to host community events for the area.
As for the future of Station 10, Chief Lamb said that they are currently working through the budget process. Cape Coral City Council has already approved a million dollars to start the design process, with the City working with the State and FEMA to help fund the full construction. The fire department hopes to have the project completed in 2 years' time.
