HOUSTON – Scary moments for crews at Houston Fire Department Station 49 on Gessner Road. A video from inside shows part of the ceiling collapsed on an ambulance around 8:30 a.m. Saturday.
Captain Andy Williamson said a crew was getting ready to relieve another crew when it happened.
“We were actually leaving the station because we were going to relieve another crew that had made a fire about 4:30 in the morning,” Williamson said.
Williamson and several others were there when sheetrock feel on this ambulance.
“It sounded like someone had dropped something in the bay and I didn’t think too much of it and then someone else had actually seen it and yelled out, “watch out the ceiling is coming down,” Williamson said.
Luckily, no one got hurt. The city’s General Service Department later cleaned up the mess and worked to secure additional sheetrock from crumbling down.
“It could have been a lot worse, most days on a Saturday morning guys are checking out the station, eating breakfast and looking at things,” Williamson said.
In a tweet, Chief Samuel Peña said HFD Station 49 was renovated in the early 2000s.
“We’re doing what we can with the maintenance and upkeep of our fire stations but across the city, it’s an issue, we have aging facilities and it needs an investment that’s hard to come by at this time,” Peña said.
Mayor Sylvester Turner said the ceiling collapse could be connected to an undetected leak at Station 49.
“Work has started to make those necessary repairs, fortunately no one was injured,” Turner said.
“Stuff can be repaired on anything that’s damaged but I’m glad that no one got hurt,” Williamson said.
Chief Peña said the department will evaluate what damage may have been done to the medic unit the ceiling fell on.