Fire Station Waiting On New Bay Floor

The engine resting inside Fire Station 1 at 100 Central St., built in 1929, rolls home at the end of calls atop a rectangular metal slab placed over the floor, just in case.

"The floor has deteriorated where it no longer will support our current apparatus," said Deputy Fire Chief Jeffrey Peterson. So, the town will spend $300,000 to install a new floor in the station, which will also have a protective epoxy coating to ward off the corroding salt and oil that inevitably leak from any fire engine through the year.

Some of those substances, particularly the salt, have done their damage to the old floor at the station. Now, said Fire Lt. Kevin Donahue, the salt and time have weakened the floor to the point where metal braces installed in 1980 aren't enough to support the fire engines parked at the station (Engine 1 and Ladder 1 are both housed there). It's not the points where the braces are set that worry engineers, he said. "They're worried about everything crumbling around it."

The old floor will be removed, he said, and the new one will be poured into a frame set where the old floor is now. The work, which was approved by the Permanent Building Committee June 24, will begin in August, said Peterson.