Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse,ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

The T&T Fire Ser­vice (TTFF) and Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Mar­vin Gon­za­les is cur­rent­ly en­gaged in a war of words over whether they en­coun­tered is­sues with the wa­ter sup­ply while re­spond­ing to a fire in which Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian and two of her chil­dren were killed on Mon­day.

How­ev­er, the TTFS is dou­bling down on its claim af­ter Gon­za­les called for a re­trac­tion of the state­ment yes­ter­day, say­ing the fire­fight­ers who re­spond­ed to the scene did not ex­pe­ri­ence any is­sues with the avail­abil­i­ty of wa­ter.

“The state­ment would not be re­tract­ed,” act­ing chief fire of­fi­cer Andy Hutchin­son said when Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed him for a re­sponse to Gon­za­les’ call.

Mor­ris-Ju­lian, 48, her son Je­si­ah, six, and daugh­ter Xi­anne, 25, per­ished in a fire at the min­is­ter’s Far­fan Street home. Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s hus­band and oth­er rel­a­tives were al­so in­jured and hos­pi­talised in the blaze.

How­ev­er, in re­sponse to an­gry neigh­bours who ques­tioned their re­sponse time, the TTFA said they were al­so re­spond­ing to an­oth­er fire in the re­gion and had to re­quest an ad­di­tion­al wa­ter sup­ply due to a lack of wa­ter when they re­spond­ed to the dis­tress call at the min­is­ter’s home.

Yes­ter­day, Gon­za­les told Guardian Me­dia he and the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) man­age­ment were dis­ap­point­ed with the Fire ser­vice’s claim. In a me­dia re­lease, Gon­za­les al­so sought to set the record straight.

“At no point dur­ing the in­ci­dent was there a lack of wa­ter pres­sure or the avail­abil­i­ty of wa­ter in gen­er­al.” Gon­za­les fur­ther sub­stan­ti­at­ed his po­si­tion by list­ing facts, in­clud­ing that the Hol­lis Reser­voir sys­tem, which sup­plies wa­ter to Far­fan Street, was ramped up to full pro­duc­tion on De­cem­ber 12 and the pro­duc­tion of the fa­cil­i­ty was then in­creased again three days lat­er, so the area had a re­li­able sup­ply. He al­so as­sert­ed that at 4.30 am, WASA was alert­ed to a fire with­in the heart of Ari­ma and im­me­di­ate ac­tion was tak­en to di­vert sup­ply via the Subero Street Boost­er to in­crease the pres­sure in the area. He al­so not­ed that an­oth­er wa­ter source, off the Gua­napo Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant, was used as an aux­il­iary sup­ply at 5.30 am.

In con­demn­ing what he la­belled as the “mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of facts,” Gon­za­les said while at the scene of the blaze, when ques­tioned by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley about the wa­ter sup­ply’s avail­abil­i­ty, Hutchin­son con­firmed it was ad­e­quate.

Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Hutchin­son said their claims about the wa­ter sup­ply would not be re­versed.

The TTPS and the Fire Pre­ven­tion Unit have start­ed a probe to de­ter­mine the cause of the fire.

Union warns tragedy can strike again

The T&T Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion (TTF­SA) has, mean­while, said the fire which claimed the lives of Mor­ris-Ju­lian and her chil­dren served as a som­bre re­minder of the “crit­i­cal de­fi­cien­cies” with­in the ser­vice.

“This in­ci­dent, oc­cur­ring near the Ari­ma Fire Sta­tion, un­der­scores the dire con­se­quences of in­ad­e­quate re­sources, a sit­u­a­tion that has led to the loss of life be­fore and re­gret­tably, may do so again if im­me­di­ate ac­tion is not tak­en,” TTF­SA pres­i­dent Keon Guy said.

Not­ing that giv­en Ari­ma’s ge­o­graph­i­cal size, pop­u­la­tion den­si­ty and risks as­so­ci­at­ed with the pres­ence of an in­dus­tri­al es­tate, the area should be ser­viced by mul­ti­ple sta­tions and/or ten­ders, he said, “This high­lights a sys­temic is­sue the short­age of func­tion­al fire ten­ders across the na­tion. De­spite re­peat­ed ap­peals for in­creased fund­ing to ad­dress these short­ages, the Gov­ern­ment’s bud­getary al­lo­ca­tions have been in­suf­fi­cient.”

The TTF­SA urged Gov­ern­ment to re­assess its bud­getary pri­or­i­ties and al­lo­cate the nec­es­sary funds to equip the Fire Ser­vice ad­e­quate­ly.

In a state­ment, Guy al­so said the Ari­ma Fire Sta­tion’s wa­ter tanker was en­gaged else­where at the time of the fire and of­fi­cers of the Tu­na­puna Fire Sta­tion, lo­cat­ed ap­prox­i­mate­ly 15km away, had to re­spond. Guy said the av­er­age age of both wa­ter ve­hi­cles was 18 years and there­fore meant they were cost­ly to main­tain and sus­cep­ti­ble to “fre­quent break­downs.