MANOR, Texas — Some Austin-Travis County EMS (ATCEMS) medics working outside of the city of Austin have been using an unconventional station for the past few years: a three-bedroom apartment.
It started back in 2019, when ATCEMS medics were pushed out of the fire and ESD stations they would typically work in while responding to smaller cities outside of Austin. ATCEMS provides service to areas in Travis County that don’t have their own EMS system, like Manor, Bee Cave and Lakeway.
But due to the continuous explosive growth in Austin that has pushed more people to move outside the city – and, in turn, create even more growth in outer cities – the fire stations couldn’t provide the room they needed.
“All of these areas are exploding with growth because Austin’s becoming increasingly unaffordable,” Selena Xie, president of the Austin EMS Association, said.
After unsuccessful attempts to find other buildings for a station, ATCEMS settled on an unconventional choice: apartments.
There are four apartment stations in total: one in Manor, two in Lakeway and one in Bee Cave. But it hasn’t been smooth sailing trying to operate and respond to calls from a residential apartment complex.
“We’ve had our ambulances vandalized because they’re just out in the open,” Xie said. “They’re not behind, you know, a secure bay.”
Medics at the Manor apartment station said recently, their garage has been malfunctioning and people have stolen their ballistic gear, personal protective equipment and medications.
“It’s just not a safe place,” Xie said. “It’s not an appropriate place for public safety.”
They’ve also run into parking issues with the apartment complex. The complex has reserved spaces for the ambulance, but with so many vehicles coming in and out of the "station," they have been threatened with towing.
“We have so many different medics coming through, but you’re supposed to have a pass if you’re in a lot of these apartment complexes,” Xie said. “But then a lot of our folks had difficulty registering in the system because you can only register, you know, two vehicles for each apartment.”
Extreme weather also poses a challenge for these makeshift stations. During extreme heat, medications have gone bad because the ambulance has to park out in the sun. During the freeze, the apartments lost power and they couldn’t add a generator.
“We can’t add generators onto these apartment complexes because we can’t generate the whole apartment, and they can’t separate it out,” Xie said.
Just this weekend, the city of Austin proudly opened a new Fire and EMS station in southeast Austin as part of its plan to build five stations in six years to decrease response times throughout the city.
“We know that our city is growing exponentially,” ATCEMS Chief Robert Luckritz said. “We know that we need to continue to grow our public safety infrastructure to keep up with those demands.”
The Austin EMS Association is hoping the county does the same.
“Travis County really needs to do the strategic work to think about how it’s going to accommodate growth in the county,” Xie said.
Xie said that Travis County invited ATCEMS to its emergency services subcommittee meeting to talk about a strategic plan for these stations going forward. The county made a statement about its commitment to working with ATCEMS during this growth:
“As Travis County continues to experience significant expansion, particularly in areas outside our urban cores, it is crucial that we collaborate among our 21 municipalities and towns to effectively meet the increasing demands of growth in our region and provide adequate resources for our first responders. We look forward to working together to address these challenges.”
Xie hopes this means that EMS first responders will get adequate resources and respect for putting their lives on the line each day.
“One thing that is upsetting to me and other medics is that we would never allow this set up for police, for firefighters,” Xie said. “We always make sure that they have adequate space for their needs, but you know, we don’t give the same thing to EMS.”
Boomtown is KVUE's series covering the explosive growth in Central Texas. For more Boomtown stories, head to KVUE.com/Boomtown.