On Sunday, March 26 the new Hadensville Company 6 Fire-Rescue Station was dedicated. Following a prayer of thanks for the service of the volunteers and all who collaborated to bring the project to fruition, the words of the Pledge of Allegiance rang out in the rafters to further bless the new station.
Dignitaries attending included the entire Board of Supervisors, several past Fire-Rescue Chiefss; Goochland Treasurer Pamela Cooke Johnson; Commonwealth’s Attorney Mike Caudill; and our newly elected State Senator Mark Peake. We hope that Peake’s appearance signals a willingness to work for Goochland in the General Assembly. (Hopefully, some residents of the “upper” end of the county, who have little or no access to high speed internet, gave him an earful about how it is needed for more than entertainment.)
Susan Lascolette, who represents District 1, home of fire-rescue station 6, said “it is a great day in Goochland County. The station honors the contribution and dedication of all of the years of the volunteers who contribute so much to the community. The supervisors had the foresight to see the need for this and make it our first priority. Becky Dickson found a way to finance this with no debt.”
Goochland Fire-Rescue Chief Bill MacKay explained that the county is served by a combination of volunteers and career providers who work together to save lives and protect property.
Representatives of Woodmen, of the World, which gives flags to new public safety facilities to thank those in “the most honorable profession”, presented the stars and stripes to Brooks and Station Chief Lt. Earl Taylor. Brooks carried the national emblem to the flagpole in front of the station where a color guard from the Goochland High School Marine Jr. ROTC unit raised the colors.
After that, a ceremonial hose uncoupling was performed by Brooks and District 1 Supervisor Susan Lascolette. “In the fire service, we open buildings by uncoupling a fire hose instead of cutting a ribbon,” MacKay explained.
Then the doors of Fire-Rescue Station 6 opened wide to welcome the community for tours and refreshments.
The original Company 6 Station, built around 1965, had long outlived its usefulness. Hadensville Volunteer District Chief Chris Brooks told the audience that filled the apparatus bay that in 1999, the Company 6 volunteers put a new station in their annual budget. They soon learned that this would be a very expensive undertaking. In successive years, upkeep on the existing station depleted the building fund and a new station seemed to be an impossible dream.
Yet, the intrepid Company 6 volunteers used their station in the best traditions of fire-rescue, hosting community events, conducting training, and saving lives and protecting property.
The old brick and block facility consisted of equipment bays, a small meeting room/office, and kitchen that shared space with the brush truck. Due to the topography of its site, expansion was not an option. As fire trucks and ambulances grew larger, doors of the apparatus bays allowed only a few inches of clearance to get the trucks in and out.
In 2009, when the county’s first paid fire-rescue providers were hired, the situation grew more complicated. While volunteers endured a station with no showers or sleeping facilities, employees were entitled by OSHA to minimum workplace standards.
MacKay said that the current Board of Supervisors toured county facilities soon after taking office in 2012. While they were at the old station 6, career duty crew members were preparing their lunch, and needed to remove the brush truck from the kitchen in order to open the refrigerator door. The new supervisors decided right then to put a new station 6 went at the top of their priority list.
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Paying for it, was another matter. Our late County Administrator Becky Dickson suggested that making personal property tax payable on a semi-annual basis would generate a one-time $2.6 million “windfall” to pay for the station. The actual cost is about $4.4 million.
Brooks said that the Company 6 volunteers looked around for an ideal location for the new station and eventually concluded that they had been in the right place all along. When property across the street became available, it was purchased for the new station.
Representatives of Woodmen, of the World, which gives flags to new public safety facilities to thank those in “the most honorable profession”, presented the stars and stripes to Brooks and Station Chief Lt. Earl Taylor. Brooks carried the national emblem to the flagpole in front of the station where a color guard from the Goochland High School Marine Jr. ROTC unit raised the colors.
After that, a ceremonial hose uncoupling was performed by Brooks and District 1 Supervisor Susan Lascolette. “In the fire service, we open buildings by uncoupling a fire hose instead of cutting a ribbon,” MacKay explained.
Then the doors of Fire-Rescue Station 6 opened wide to welcome the community for tours and refreshments.
The new station has offices, a meeting room; a spacious kitchen large enough to hold three brush trucks; a fitness center; bunk and shower rooms; a laundry; a decontamination room; and lots of room for expansion. The bay doors are wide and high and open at both ends. It will serve as place of work, for the community to assemble, and as a place of refuge in times of widespread emergency.
On March 30, Lascolette will host a District 1 Town Hall meeting at the station starting at 7 p.m.
This is the first fire-rescue station built by the county. The others were built, in most cases literally, by the hands of volunteers with moral, financial, and hands-on support of citizens. Fire-rescue station 6 was definitely a learning experience for all involved and its lessons will serve as a guide for the future.
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