House Fire - 211 East Forest Ave
Today one of our long-time residents suffered a tremendous loss.
Jimmy Permenter whose home stood at 211 East
Forest is tonight homeless. The house and
most of his possessions on East Forest
Avenue have been completely destroyed. Jimmy
was one of the very few residents that
stayed during Hurricane Ike and never left.
He rebuilt and repaired and never looked
back. Tonight the challenge is so much
greater. We are very sorry for his loss.
It's fortunate that in these drought conditions we didn't see more
fire damage. Nearby trees caught fire and
windblown embers set grass and brush ablaze
half a block away. La Porte firefighters and
EMS assisted by Shoreacres Police offices
were able to tamp out those small fires and
prevent further loss.
It was a very hot fire and despite escaping the spread of fire the
neighbors certainly suffered damage from the
extreme heat. Siding melted off the house
across the street, patches of lawn were
scorched, and even nearby vehicles felt the
effects.
I'm sure that you will hear any number of stories about the fire
and what happened. One of things you might
hear is that the City of Shoreacres didn't
have enough water pressure to fight the
fire. However, that would not be entirely
true. We maintained water pressure in our
system throughout the fire, at least to the
best ability of our system. That said, we
have been operating at about half capacity
since Hurricane Ike destroyed Water Plant #1
near City Hall. About half the water
storage, about half our water sources, about
half the water pressure boosters, and about
half the pressure/elevated storage were
completely destroyed by Ike. Additionally,
most of our hydrants were damaged to some
extent by Ike and are still awaiting repair.
As a result a handful of hydrants may not be
functioning to their full ability. None of
this however come as a new revelation.
Our system today simply is not up to the high demands of large
scale firefighting. All of our water comes
from our smaller Water Plant #2 on Bayou
Forest at the extreme west end of the City
where the water tower is located. The
further east you go the harder it is for us
to supply large volumes of water.
There were pressure issues at the fire today. I personally
monitored the supply (suction) pressure at
the first-in pumper. It was zero and
intermittently negative at the peak of the
fire. As more trucks arrived and more
demands were made it wasn't going to get any
better. That said, I also can tell you that
no amount of water pressure or supply would
have saved this house under the
circumstances present this afternoon. The
fire just had too much of a head start
before any fire hoses were charged.
We have been anxious to rebuild Water Plant #1 for almost three
years so that we can meet the city's routine
demands and improve water pressure and
delivery. And we look forward to having a
good supply of water for fighting fires like
the one today. The new water plant will be a
huge improvement and provide better pressure
than the city has ever experienced. That
won't however improve our distribution
system, the pipes in the ground. We have
fewer hydrants than we should have. But
hydrants require large water mains, the
pipes that we don't have.
What we do have are plans. We are working towards rebuilding Water
Plant #1 which should be fully operational
early next year. While that process is
moving exceedingly slow, it is moving as
quickly as we have the ability to push. We
also have plans to rehabilitate all of our
fire hydrants. Plans that were discussed as
recently as yesterday in preparation for
starting work. Originally we requested FEMA
funds to rebuild the hydrants, but were
denied. We then successfully had the
hydrants included on our TxCDBG grant which
prevented us from doing any work on them.
Then last week we learned that the hydrants
were dropped from the TxCDBG grant. Since
then David Sutton, our Public Works
Director, and I have begun planning to do
that work in-house. Yesterday we discussed
specifications and compatibility with the
City of La Porte.
Recently we've also discussed an interconnect with the City of La
Porte so that we could supply them with
water in emergencies. In that initial
conversation I proposed adding a Shoreacres
fire hydrant on the extension, on our side,
to provide better coverage in the area of
Sunrise and Baywood.
Friday we will open bids to replace four blocks of water mains east
of Old Highway 146. Not lines big enough to
supply a fire hydrant, but mains that will
improve our system's pressure and capacity
in those areas. It's the first step of a
long range plan to upgrade our water
distribution system.
Prior to today's terrible fire loss the gears were already in
motion to not only repair our water system
to its pre-Ike condition, but to upgrade it
and provide better service and protection to
our residents. You can follow the progress
on the City's
website under the heading, "City Project
Status Reports." You can also find
photographs of today's fire on the City's
website flickr
Photo Album link.
And, again we pause to think of Mr. Permenter and offer our
sincerest wishes and prayers as he confronts
his personal tragedy.
David K. Stall, CFM City Administrator - City Secretary - EMC -
Floodplain Administrator City of
Shoreacres, 601 Shoreacres Blvd, Shoreacres,
TX 77571 281.471.2244 -
281.471.8955 Fax
Administrator@cityofshoreacres.us
www.CityofShoreacres.us
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