Forest Acres police start move back into renovated station

For the first time since historic flooding in October, Forest Acres Police Chief Gene Sealy unlocked the front door of his police station Monday and placed a welcome mat by it.

“I’ve been waiting to do that,” Sealy said, standing on the station’s newly renovated first floor, complete with new carpets and tile and freshly painted walls.

The renovation costing nearly $74,000 is still in progress.

Municipal court in the back of the station, for instance, has a judge’s bench in place, but stacks of books, bits of carpet and even a plunger still lie on the floor. New furniture has not yet been delivered.

The move back to the department’s long-time home is a major step toward normalcy after tough times over the past three months.

“We were keeping our fingers crossed that this day would finally come,” Sealy said. “They’ll be a lot more comfortable back in their space. It’s been like it’s their home. We’ve been in this building almost 40 years.”

The department’s recent troubles began on Sept. 30 when officer Greg Alia was shot and killed in Richland Mall while responding to a call about a suspicious person.

A day after Alia’s burial, grief-stricken officers were forced into action by flooding during record rainfall across the Midlands Oct. 4.

The flooding ruined furniture, flooring and parts of the walls in the station as well as Alia’s patrol car, parked in front of the building as a memorial.

Officers worked for a week out of nearby Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, then crowded into the second floor of their station, awaiting repairs to the gutted first floor.

Municipal court moved to nearby City Hall while 911 dispatchers worked out of a mobile command center parked outside. The front door, usually open for residents to drop by, remained locked.

“We’ve lost that the last couple of months, Sealy said. “It’s very important because this is where folks in the town were used to coming if they had a question or if they wanted to go out of town and put their home on property check, get an accident report. There was always somebody here. That light stayed on 24/7.”

Sealy said things could “get a little chaotic” over the past three months with officers not having everything handy on one floor.

But moving back in should boost morale, he said. “It’s like being back home, once you work here so long.”

Sealy hopes the move-in will be complete by Jan. 31. Residents again can enter the front door to speak with staff, but the first floor won’t be fully operational until the renovation is complete after new furniture and equipment arrives, he said.

Furniture, computers and other equipment lost to the flooding could cost up to $50,000 to replace, City Administrator Mark Williams said.

The renovation won’t leave the station exactly as it was before the flood. In one office, a brick wall remains just as it was after the station was gutted because the employee who works there preferred it, Sealy said. The renovation also included cutting out part of a wall so workers in the communications department can easily got in and out of a storage room with files.

“We could look around and make some tweaks, things that we needed to do 20 years ago and maybe we couldn’t,” Sealy said. “But now we have an opportunity, so we did.”

This story was originally published January 4, 2016 at 3:41 PM.