After the October 2019 tornado, the fire station in Preston Royal has been absent from the neighborhood. Now, a new station is taking its place, City of Dallas District 13 Council Member Gay Willis said. According to Willis, the new fire station will be a significant improvement from what it used to be and will offer better services.
According to resident Daniel Sanders, everybody in the area has felt its absence even though other things have been rebuilt or repopulated. “I think everyone’s noticed it’s not there,” he said, “even though a lot of other things around here have populated again or been rebuilt.”
Many residents in the six and a half square miles that Station 41 covered are concerned about the absence of the fire station in the area. “Obviously, this is a large area of people, and we need to be serviced just like any other area in the community,” one resident named Andrea Miller said.
Five stations in the district have worked together to ensure that residents’ emergency needs are met since the tornado, Council Member Willis said. “So we have a number of stations that have picked that up, and because it’s so close to the Tollway, the response time is really not compromised,” she said.
Despite having their emergency needs covered by neighboring fire stations, residents said they will be happy to have Station 41 back.
Construction on the new station building will begin this winter, officials say. The construction is expected to be complete in the winter of 2022. However, they say a temporary fire station will be erected by the end of the year so that the neighborhood can have fire emergencies covered before the new station is completed and ready for use.
According to Willis, the building that will house the new station will include a covering for the engine and a facility for firefighters to wait for a call.