PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WMBB) — The St. Andrews Bay Yacht Club along with many other facilities has very old infrastructure.
The fire hydrant nearest to the yacht club is one of those examples.
When fire officials opened the valve on the corner of Bunkers Cove Road and Corto Street to connect their hoses, no water came out so they immediately called for backup.
Panama City Fire Department and Bay County Fire Rescue had to attach their hoses to a serviceable fire hydrant down the road.
To put out the fire, firefighters had to make several trips filling up their trucks from a secure water supply and dumping the water in a drop tank in certain areas.
“We have fire hydrants that that don’t function optimally. And not to say that there’s not water coming out of them, it’s just not the volume that that we need to put water on fire,” said Panama City Assistant Manager Jared Jones.
Jones says when the water mains were constructed, they were only 4 inches wide.
He says Panama City is planning on using grant money to make the water mains around the city a minimum of 8 inches wide.
