Tagged: fire department

New Orleans officials have broken ground for a new $3.6 million fire station designed to serve an area not protected by levees.

The city says the new Alba Road Fire Station in the Venetian Isles area will replace a smaller facility that was 30 years old when it flooded during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The station is being built with aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Construction began with Wednesday's groundbreaking ceremony and is to be completed this fall.

A new fire station planned for Thibodaux will serve residences, a hospital and Nicholls State University.

The founders of Acadia Plantation donated 1.5 acres of land for the station, which the Thibodaux Volunteer Fire Department has been planning for years.

The Daily Comet reports that the station will be the department's tenth in the city. Fire Chief Randy Pate said he hopes to begin the public bid process for contractors in the next six to eight months and to break ground possibly by the end of the year.

The Morgan City Fire Department has taken delivery on a new fire truck from Ferrara Fire Apparatus in Holden.

Fire Chief Morris Price tells the Daily Review he picked up the truck on Dec. 27.

The pumper truck replaces one that succumbed to mechanical failure several months ago.

The City Council in December authorized $218,898 to buy the new truck.

A downtown New Orleans hotel was evacuated Saturday after a fire in a fourth-floor laundry room. No injuries were reported.

The fire started Saturday evening after 6 p.m. at the Intercontinental Hotel on St. Charles Avenue, a few blocks southeast of the French Quarter.

Fire Capt. Edwin Holmes said the fire was mostly contained by the sprinkler system to the laundry room, but there was a lot of smoke and firefighters were still working to ventilate the building.