Two decades after 9/11, there’s finally a timetable to rebuild the Pentagon fire station destroyed in the attacks.
Amid the debris of the terror attack at the Pentagon was a control tower and fire station that served the Pentagon helipad that used to usher in dignitaries, military leaders and U.S. presidents.
For 20 years, the firefighters who man a post at the helipad have worked in a temporary trailer facility -- cramped and not up to national firefighter standards, according to the union representing the firefighters.
Last week, the News4 I-Team revealed the process of rebuilding has been derailed or delayed multiple times -- at least once due to an unexpected increase in expected costs.
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The Pentagon declined multiple requests over several weeks for an update, but days after the report aired, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said he received a new timetable from the Defense Department: Construction is expected to begin next month with competition in 2023.
“This is just one small example of the kinds of infrastructure we need to be reinvesting in, and the fact that it’s taken us 20 years to put the funding in place to rebuild the first responders’ facility at the Pentagon – I’m glad it’s being rebuilt,” Warner said last week. “It's crazy that it took 20 years."
The project is still in its design phase.
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The money to pay for it was formally approved by Congress in 2019.
