Blood, Sweat and Fear Built Haunted Fire House

About six weeks of work went into the planning and construction of East Lake Fire Rescue's Haunted Fire House. If all goes as planned, a trip through the haunted house will scare teens so much, they'll never text and drive again, making all the hours of hard work worth it.

"What we want people to know is texting and driving kills people every year and maims and injures many more, so it's very important that they understand how serious that is," said East Lake Fire Rescue Chief Tom Jamison.

Jamison's crew created scary encounters throughout the haunted fire house that are designed to make teens think twice about texting and driving.

"Knowing we have a very short attention span for the age group we're shooting for, this is a way to get the message across subtly for about a ten minute period," he said.

Wednesday evening, Jamison met with more than 50 eager volunteers who will help out at the haunted house. 

"The less you say, the creepier you look," said Kerrianne Ferreri, 26, of East Lake, who was a volunteer last year and is the daughter of East Lake Fire Commissioner, Paul Ferreri.

Last Halloween, she dressed like a zombie and drove a trolley that escorted people from the parking lot to the haunted fire house. This year, she's convinced her friend, Brendan Ballard, 27, of Palm Harbor to volunteer.

"I scream like a little girl when something catches me off guard," he laughed.

Some local teens are also volunteering their time.

This is the second year that East Lake High 11th grader Kaitlyn Knapp,16 has volunteered at the haunted fire house. Last Halloween, she got to jump out of a coffin and scare people.

"I had a lot of fun doing it last year," she said.

Knapp was with her friends at Wednesday's orientation.

"I thought it would be fun to be part of something for the community," said East Lake High 10th grader Natalie Cobaich, 15, who will be volunteering at the haunted house for the first time. 

Their pal, Zachary Curtis, 16, is an 11th grader at J.W. Mitchell High School in nearby New Port Richey. He's back for a second year of volunteering and particularly likes being in costume and scaring his friends.

"It's awesome because they don't know it's you behind the mask and you hide and jump out and scare them, and then you tell them later and it's funny."

The East Lake Haunted Fire House will be open Friday and Saturday evenings in October beginning Friday, Oct. 5. What you need to know before you go.