What happened in the Midlands on this day? Here's a sampling from the World-Herald archives.
FIRE STATION, 3 TRUCKS BURN
Feb. 11, 1974: Authorities were investigating the cause of the early-morning blaze which destroyed the Carter Lake fire station and adjoining maintenance garage, and heavily damaged a third building, used as a workshop. The blaze destroyed the city's three fire trucks, one purchased three weeks ago, a rescue truck, a snowplow and some other equipment. Mayor Jerry Waltrip said losses were "in the neighborhood of $100,000." Officials credited quick assistance of Omaha and Ponca Hills Fire Departments with keeping the fire from spreading to nearby homes. Asst. Fire Chief Joe Jones said, "My heart quit beating as I drove towards the blaze. It (the fire station) was a ball of flames."
1946: Returning Omaha medical and dental officers found the scarcity of office space here a problem, but it hadn't yet reached the point where they asked to stay in service for this reason. This was the opinion of officers of the Omaha District Dental Society and the Douglas County Medical Society. The Medical Arts Building was packed to capacity, they said. So are most of the other buildings that provided the more popular medical office space. But there were a few vacancies in less-desirable buildings.
1994: The failure of an electrical component caused Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station to shut down automatically, an Omaha Public Power District spokesman said. OPPD issued a notification of unusual event, the lowest of four emergency classifications established by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, at 4 a.m., the spokesman, Gary Williams, said. The notification was required by the NRC in such incidents. "It was not done because there was a threat to the public or employees," he said. The notification ended at 7:50 a.m. All plant equipment performed as it was designed to do in an emergency, Williams said, and no radioactivity was released into the environment.
2000: Bellevue's traffic-safety committee proposed a ban on parking in cul-de-sacs and new restrictions for on-street parking throughout the city. The City Council would discuss those proposals at their next meeting. Street Superintendent George Graham said city crews have to install 550 new no-parking signs in 31 recently annexed neighborhoods. But before the workers do that, at a cost of approximately $16,000, Graham said the city should consider parking alternatives. Bellevue, at the time, restricted parking in most residential areas to only one side of a street.
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