KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A new fire station near Interstate 435 and Northeast Cookingham Drive, which aims to improve response times and protect firefighters, officially has opened for business.
The Kansas City, Missouri, Fire Department and city officials celebrated the new $6 million facility Tuesday with a ribbon cutting.
According to Deputy Fire Chief Jimmy Walker, it used to take ambulances and firetrucks up to 10 minutes to get to an emergency in that part of the town.
With the new station, crews will be better positioned and response times should be lower, but not everyone is happy about the new station.
"The peace of mind is gone," Northland resident Jamie Humphreys said.
Humphreys lives around the corner from KCFD Station No. 40, which is located near North Oak Traffickway and Vivion Road.
The station is temporarily closed because of health concerns and its crews have since moved to the new Northland station No. 15.
"The building was not in very good shape," Walker said. "We had some sewage issues. It's just old and run down, so we are assessing whether we are going to remodel or replace that building."
As KCFD assesses what to do with station No. 40 in the long-term, the department is keeping one ambulance in the area and adding another one to station No. 6, which is located a short distance down the road. According to Walker, most of station No. 40's calls were medical.
Still, Humphreys worries response times will be slower, a concern KCFD doesn't think is waranted.
"It didn't seem like, when we did our research, that any area of 40's coverage will be more than a six-minute response time for apparatus," Walker said.
