Treasure Island police, fire getting new facility after Hurricane Helene destroyed previous one

Treasure Island approves public safety building

Kailey Tracy reports.

TREASURE ISLAND, Fla. - Treasure Island Fire Rescue and Police Department have been operating out of portable buildings in City Hall’s parking lot since Hurricane Helene destroyed their public safety facility.

The backstory:

Helene flooded the public safety facility on 108th Avenue with three feet of water.

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"Their lockers were flooded," Treasure Island Police Chief John Barkley said. "We had water up into our top desk drawers in our offices. You’d open up the desk drawer, and you’re getting a puddle of water in your lap."

"It’s just hard to recover from that and try to figure out where you’re at from that step, and then you have to go and do your job," Barkley said.

Big picture view:

They just got some good news, though, about the future of their permanent home. On Tuesday night, the City Commission unanimously approved the spot next to City Hall at 10499 Gulf Boulevard for the new public safety facility.

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"Since the storm, you're talking about future growth, and what's Treasure Island going to look like in four years, five years, 10 years down the road? There’s going to be a lot of growth, and this is the center part of the city, this is where everything is going to be happening," Barkley said. "We're right across the street from the busiest part of our beach, so it's going to be great for everybody."

Treasure Island Fire Chief Trip Barrs said a study they did looking at two years’-worth of call data showed this spot will shave 38 seconds off the average fire and EMS response time.

"When you look at a heat map of the location of our calls, they track right to this point. The majority of them are right here in city center. So, a lot of those involve vacationers and beach incidents. We have great access to all of our neighborhoods north, south and going east from this direction. So, it's just a better location from both a common sense and a data perspective," Barrs said.

Dig deeper:

City officials talked about replacing the public safety facility that’s on 108th Avenue and more than 60 years old for years.

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"Other priorities have pushed it back. This [the hurricanes] put it to the forefront. So, having the vote last night be unanimous and the support of the commission for what we're doing here for the community and our staffs, we really appreciate that," Barrs said.

What they're saying:

"Last night was a big win. They’re really looking forward to a permanent home. They spend a third of their lives in the fire department," Barrs said. "We slept in seven different places in the immediate aftermath of the storm, churches, a community college, two different hotels, our vehicles for a night."

"It’s definitely boosting the morale of the officers and the people that work here," Barkley said.

What's next:

The new public safety facility will be designed to withstand tropical storms and hurricanes. It will also have an emergency operations center.

"We need a facility that we can operate to right after a storm hits. Before, we were operating out of an EOC that was a mile and a half away from the city. We weren't even in the city. We were past our own checkpoints that we had set up on Central Avenue. So, it was really inconvenient, and it just didn't make sense, and the officers really, really wanted to be on the island here helping people," Barkley said.

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"Just getting stuff on and off the island physically was a nightmare. So, that's why we need a nice, hardened structure that we're able to work out of right away as soon as the storm is done," Barkley said.

The chiefs expect to spend about another 18 months to two years in the portable buildings – their temporary homes – until the new facility opens.

"I think people are excited about it because it's part of the rebirth. This kind of signaling that Treasure Island is going to come back, and it's going to build back even stronger than it was before and better than it was before, and if we’re a part of that, and we're part of the rebirth, we're excited for it, for both police and fire, and for what it's going to do for the citizens," Barkley said.

The City Commission also approved the issuance of an engineering and design request for qualifications, moving the project toward the design and development phase. It’s too early to determine, city officials say, the cost of the project. They are, though, going to try to get state and federal money to help pay for the facility.

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