squirrels burn down city hall

In northern Alabama:

Red Bay's new jail ready for inspection

The past year-and-a-half has been a whirlwind for Police Chief Pat Creel.

The department has been working out of the Franklin County Sheriff's Office substation in Red Bay since a fire destroyed the town's municipal building May 13, 2006, after a squirrel caused a power line to fall across the building, which also housed city hall.

"Has it been that long?" Creel said, as if asking himself.

Final inspections on a new jail, built on the old city hall site, are planned for Thursday and Friday. An open house is planned for Dec. 2.

"We may start moving in that afternoon," Creel said.

The 3,500-square-foot facility will include four cells, where the previous jail only had two.

"There were always problems in the old jail because we would have to move people around if we had a female inmate," Mayor Jeff Reid said.

Each cell will have its own shower so inmates will not have to be moved from their cells.

"It will keep our dispatchers from having to move the prisoners," Creel said. "Everything will be self-contained, and there won't have to be a lot of interaction with the inmates except for taking them out for exercise."

The jail also will have a training room for conferences and meetings. In the old building, officers would have to use the city council meeting room for large gatherings.

"We will have about three times as much room as we did have," Creel said.

The Red Bay Police Department has six full-time and officers one part-time officer as well as four full-time and two part-time dispatchers in addition to Creel.

"We are going to have a place set up for the sheriff's office in case they ever need to use our facility," Creel said. "They really helped us by letting us use their substation. I am sure the sheriff never thought we would be there for a year-and-a-half, but they were very helpful to us by providing that and keeping our inmates at the county jail."

A new city hall has already opened on Fourth Avenue, the main road through town.

City hall operations were moved to a downtown storefront after the fire.

The city secured a $150,000 grant for the work on the two facilities.

"We didn't have to borrow any money," Reid said. "Both of these facilities are great for the town and something that should last for years to come."

Creel said each room in the two buildings is built so that fires would not easily spread from one room to another.

"In theory, if one of the rooms caught on fire, it would take 30 to 45 minutes to get through to another room," he said.

As one of the world's foremost experts on the subject of squirrel terrorism, It is my recommendation that snipers need to be positioned immediately on the roof of this building, 24/7, to look out for future attacks, and on all other buildings in similar situations where a power line could fall on the building. For example, there's high-voltage lines above Courtland Center in Burton, right above our Home Store, and the substation across the street has already been the focus of one attack. Clearly we have been negligent and have ignored this threat in the past, but the American people must unite against this common enemy. No expense is too great.

In times like these, where squirrel attacks are imminent, it is easy to get discouraged and feel that perhaps we should give in to the enemy. But remember the words of a great leader:

"After all that has just passed -- all the lives taken, and all the possibilities and hopes that died with them -- it is natural to wonder if America's future is one of fear. Some speak of an age of terror. I know there are struggles ahead, and dangers to face. But this country will define our times, not be defined by them. As long as the United States of America is determined and strong, this will not be an age of terror; this will be an age of liberty, here and across the world.

Great harm has been done to us. We have suffered great loss. And in our grief and anger we have found our mission and our moment. Freedom and fear are at war. The advance of human freedom -- the great achievement of our time, and the great hope of every time -- now depends on us. Our nation -- this generation -- will lift a dark threat of violence from our people and our future. We will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage. We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail."

Keep these inspiring words in your heart and head as we go into future battles with these criminal rodents. It will be a long, hard battle, but it is one that we will win.