By Travis Tritten
The Sun News
Copyright 2007 The Sun News
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — When Vivian Brown called 911 last month, she said it took at least 30 minutes for an ambulance to show up at her home -- just a mile from the Cates Bay fire station.
The ambulance had to come from a more distant station because the nearest station has no ambulance.
Residents in the rural community in western Horry County worry that their fire and emergency rescue service is suffering no ambulance and the loss of its full-time fire crew in 2003.
About 50 people aired their concerns Monday during a meeting with county officials and their District 11 representative, Al Allen. The message from the county was that some improvements are likely soon but costs will prohibit the ambulance and additional firefighters at least for this year.
“Right now, in the budget, Horry County doesn’t have the funding to put an ambulance in the firehouse,” Allen told the crowd. But “we’ve got some solutions in the works that are going to help everything get a whole lot better.”
The community had no problems until the county moved the station’s full-time firefighters to Juniper Bay four years ago, Cates Bay resident Leonard Cannon said.
“We were proud of them, and we want them back,” Cannon said.
The firefighters used to stay in a bunkhouse on the station property, but the building was condemned, according to Gary Watson, director of county maintenance.
The building was so badly deteriorated that a firefighter put a foot through the floor, Watson said.
Building a new residence for full-time firefighters will cost about $475,000, he said.
That’s more than the $100,000 the county has to spend, said Paul Whitten, director of the county Public Safety Division.
The county is looking into how to “take the money available -- the $100,000 -- and do something for this station,” Whitten said.
It was too early to say what improvements could be made to the simple three-walled garage on Kates Bay Highway, but the county will be working in conjunction with the community’s volunteer firefighters to come up with the best use of the money, he said.
Horry County Council debated and then decided to add two ambulances to county emergency services this year, one in fast-growing Carolina Forest.