Published: April 08, 2009 01:52 pm      

Orange on the move to rebuilding shaken parts

The city of Orange was hit hard by Hurricane Ike and since then has made strides to move forward after the devastating event.

Some of the city’s structures such as the central station of Orange Fire Department were destroyed from the flood waters. Recently officials announced they are moving forward with the project to build a new structure on the current property and are expanding to include the land next to it.

Fire Chief David Frenzel said he expects the $4.5 million project to take up to 30 months to be completed.

The fire department has been at the location on 7th Street since 1946 but after the damages incurred following Hurricane Ike they were forced to find another location. Initially they contacted port officials a day after the storm about a property so OFD could resume operations. But, OFD had to wait until it was cleaned up because the warehouse had taken on about four feet of water which caused officials to look elsewhere.

For about a month, the fire department stayed at the Orange Library, but were forced to keep their equipment outside which posed problems for the equipment and security issues.

While OFD waits for the new building to be completed they will remain at the port location.

Other damaged city buildings included the Orange Police Department. The entire first floor was damaged including the lobby area, dispatch, surrounding offices and the municipal court room.

Officials have been meeting with contractors and the repairs are moving along. They hope to be done by the first part of May.

Since the hurricane, officials have been wanting to get to the nitty gritty of the problem with the underground storm sewage.

“The storm drains are filled up with silt and we have asked for help to clean the underground storm sewage,” Claybar said during a previous interview. “A rain storm can be a real flood event.”

It was during a March 10, city council meeting when council members moved forward with the project and awarded a contract for the removal of sediment to Clean Serve Inc.