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Wellsburg Fire Station Funding?

Updated Friday, February 01, 2013

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In September of 2011, tropical storm Lee hit the twin tiers, flooding home after home. Included among the wreckage was the home of the Wellsburg Fire Station, a company promised federal funding from FEMA.

February 1, 2013
Wellsburg (WENY) - In September of 2011, tropical storm Lee hit the twin tiers, flooding home after home. Included among the wreckage was the home of the Wellsburg Fire Station, a company promised federal funding from FEMA. Close to a year and a half later, firefighters in Wellsburg are still waiting for that aid. In Wellsburg, once-a-century-type floods happen every 8 years. The fire department has been flooded and destroyed 6 separate times, and village leaders are sick of it. In the village of Wellsburg, the fire house isn't just a emergency services building, it's a community center.
       After Wellsburg flooded in 2006, village leaders got to together to put together a proposal to move the fire house. The total cost for the move was more than $2 million. When the fire house flooded again in 2011, Mayor Malcolm Coles knew that it was the time to ask FEMA for funding to relocate the building out of the flood plain. FEMA approved the funding but has yet to deliver on their promise, prompting Seantor Chuck Shchumer to look into the hold up.
      “It's well deserved for our community to finally get this building this fire station out of the flood way out of the flood zone, it's promising,” says Coles.