Boone County Fire Protection District and the City of Columbia agree to an alternative emergency route
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The Boone County Fire Protection District and the City of Columbia agreed on an alternative emergency route for first responders during construction for a new roundabout at Sinclair, Old Plank and Route K.
Construction on the roundabout first started on Monday. At that time the Fire Protection District did not have an emergency route planned out and its expected delayed response was about six minutes.
Gale Blomenkamp with the Boone County Fire Protection District said the original route would've had emergency crews go through two sub-divisions adding on the six minutes.
“Nobody wants emergency to run through subdivisions, we don’t want to do it and the people don’t want us doing it. We will have just a short detour through the Cascades subdivision and we will be able to make access to where we need to go,” Blomenkamp said.
Blomenkamp said that six minutes was the difference between first responders getting to someone's house before it burned down.
On Tuesday the Fire Protection District met with city officials at the roundabout site. On Wednesday the protection district and the city came up with an emergency access plan so first responders could get through the construction zone.
Originally the construction zone made it impossible for Station 8 to get to Old Plank and Sinclair.
The protection district will use the detour for the next two months until the construction of the roundabout is complete August 16.
