City leaders gathered this morning to formally open the city’s newest fire station, Station 10, which is on Old Highway 67 and will serve the Cedar Lake and East Woolmarket areas.
The new station, which is expected to reduce response times north of the Bay, will currently be manned ’round the clock by three firefighters and a couple firefighting vehicles. The station is on old Highway 67, just east of Cedar Lake Road.
Architect Mark Williams designed the station in the same style he used for two other stations: Station 2 on Point Cadet and Station 9 at Eagle Point.
“We’re very proud of this new station and what it means to our ability to serve the people of Biloxi, especially those north of the Bay,” Fire Chief Joe Boney said after the ceremony. “We’re also proud that this new station honors one of our fallen firefighters.”
The station was dedicated in memory of Anthony Rousseau, believed to be the first Biloxi firefighter to be killed in the line of duty. Rousseau died after being crushed by a hook-and-ladder truck as it was leaving a station enroute to a fire call on March 14, 1951.
Said Bernie Marinovich during the ceremony: “I didn’t get to know Uncle Tony. He was just 43 years old when he died, and I was only 3. But I think my mother, Octavia Rousseau, Tony’s sister, would have described him as a quiet, humble hard-working man.
“I believe Tony himself would have said he was an ordinary American, doing what he loved and the work he believed in. But I submit, that Tony Rousseau was no ordinary American. On the contrary, he was a committed Biloxi firefighter. I know in my heart that Tony embodied what it takes to be a firefighter: honor, courage, valor.”
Gallery: See photos from the ceremony
Read Bernie Marinovich’s comments about Tony Rousseau
Podcast: Joe Boney on fire stations and Jack, the Fire Dog
