Shal­iza Has­sanali and

An­na-Lisa Paul

Ix­i­ah Ju­lian, the el­dest son of D’Abadie/O’Meara MP Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian, was forced to jump out of a win­dow to es­cape the rag­ing fire that claimed the life of his 48-year-old moth­er, his six-year-old broth­er Je­si­ah, and 25-year-old sis­ter Xi­anne at the fam­i­ly’s home at Far­fan Street, Ari­ma, yes­ter­day.

Dur­ing a tele­phone in­ter­view, for­mer Ari­ma MP and ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter An­tho­ny Gar­cia con­firmed that Ix­i­ah, 17, “had to climb through a win­dow” to save his own life.

Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s hus­band Daniel and one of his daugh­ters al­so es­caped the blaze.

The deaths, Gar­cia said, had left Ix­i­ah trau­ma­tised, in grief and dis­tressed.

“We didn’t want to press him too much un­der those cir­cum­stances. We want to give him time to grieve. We didn’t want to bom­bard him with any ques­tions. Of course, he is still shak­en.”

At the scene yes­ter­day, rel­a­tives were too dis­traught to speak to Guardian Me­dia, but on­look­ers, in­clud­ing sev­er­al of her con­stituents, neigh­bours and friends, were seen open­ly cry­ing over the tragedy.

“Lisa was a good soul. She is no more,” Gar­cia said.

The Gar­cias and Ju­lian-Mor­ris fam­i­lies shared a close and un­break­able bond.

“The news came as a shock to me and my en­tire fam­i­ly. We were very much trau­ma­tised.”

As news of the deaths spread, scores of Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher, vis­it­ed the scene.

Scores of burgess­es and even per­sons liv­ing out­side of Ari­ma soon gath­ered along Far­fan Street, weep­ing and watch­ing as fire and po­lice of­fi­cials combed through the still-smoul­der­ing re­mains of the gut­ted prop­er­ty.

The blaze, which re­port­ed­ly be­gan at 5.30 am, quick­ly en­gulfed the house and trapped three of the eight oc­cu­pants who were al­leged­ly asleep at the time.

The bod­ies of Mor­ris-Ju­lian and her son Je­si­ah were found in a bed­room on the east­ern side of the house; while her daugh­ter Xi­anne was found in a bed­room on the north­ern side.

Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s hus­band was said to have sus­tained first and sec­ond-de­gree burns to the back, hand and head, and was tak­en to the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal, where he was sta­bilised and then trans­ferred to the In­ten­sive Care Unit at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope.

Three oth­er per­sons were said to have al­so suf­fered in­juries and re­mained hos­pi­talised yes­ter­day.

Look­ing on in dis­be­lief and shock, Cab­i­net min­is­ters and the pub­lic alike wept open­ly as they mourned for the woman they de­scribed as one of the most help­ful, lov­ing and car­ing per­sons around.

Among the min­is­ters com­fort­ing one an­oth­er at the scene were En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young; Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds; Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly; Hous­ing Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is; Plan­ning Min­is­ter Pen­ne­lope Beck­les; Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter Symon de No­bri­ga; Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein; So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Don­na Cox; Youth De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Fos­ter Cum­mings; Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les and Deputy House Speak­er Es­mond Forde.

Ari­ma May­or Bal­li­ram Ma­haraj and Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne were al­so present, while for­mer min­is­ters and for­mer may­ors ar­rived to pay their re­spects and of­fer con­do­lences.

As sev­er­al per­sons joined hands and prayed at the scene, the bar on the cor­ner of the street, which re­mained locked due to the pow­er out­age as a re­sult of the fire, be­gan play­ing gospel mu­sic.

Even as fire of­fi­cers doused the premis­es, up­set mem­bers of the pub­lic com­plained about the al­leged late re­sponse by the fire ser­vices.

Neigh­bour Shiv­an Mathu­ra, who was first alert­ed around 5 am by his bark­ing dogs, said he heard Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s hus­band scream­ing for help to res­cue the three who were trapped at the back of the house.

He said he rushed out of his house, which is oblique­ly op­po­site Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s prop­er­ty, and heard the three vic­tims cry­ing and beg­ging for help.

He cried as he re­called con­tact­ing the Ari­ma Fire Sta­tion, which is less than a block away, on­ly to be told the lone fire ten­der was at the scene of a com­mer­cial fire at Manuel Con­go and would not be able to re­spond im­me­di­ate­ly.

As a re­sult, a wa­ter truck from the Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion had to be utilised in the in­ter­im, as fire ten­ders from the Tu­na­puna Fire Sta­tion were dis­patched to the scene. Mathu­ra said the tragedy re­in­forced the fact that they need an­oth­er fire truck in Ari­ma.

“We need two so in case one go and any­thing hap­pen, it have one in­side.”

Claim­ing the en­tire street lived as one, he said, “All the neigh­bours tried to help but we couldn’t get through be­cause the fire was too high.”

He said Mor­ris-Ju­lian and her chil­dren were noth­ing but nice to him.

“I could nev­er say noth­ing bad bout Lisa.”

While he stressed that it was not about as­crib­ing blame, Mathu­ra urged, “We had­da step up on the wa­ter trucks and them be­cause it was an Ari­ma Bor­ough Coun­cil truck that had to come and it take long for the fire truck to come so we need more wa­ter and we need the fire trucks and them.”

He es­ti­mat­ed that it took more than one hour for a fire ten­der to re­spond to the blaze. Mathu­ra said the tragedy could have been avoid­ed if a sec­ond fire ten­der had been able to re­spond.

“The hus­band run out bawl­ing and the girls and them was bawl­ing, and we could­na do noth­ing be­cause the fire start at the back and come in the front.”

He added, “It take a while for the trucks to come to out that fire. We have a re­al prob­lem with wa­ter in Ari­ma and the fire trucks.”

Speak­ing with re­porters feet away from where the in­ci­dent oc­curred yes­ter­day, for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ash­ton Forde al­so ad­dressed the re­sponse, “The fire sta­tion is not even a block away.”

Pressed about con­cerns that fire of­fi­cers had failed to re­spond in a time­ly man­ner, he claimed, “I don’t have a clue about the re­sponse ... but what I do know is that they were not here on time. That’s for sure. That is some­thing else to be in­ves­ti­gat­ed.”

Forde echoed sim­i­lar con­cerns raised by res­i­dents liv­ing close by who be­lieve the three could have been saved had the fire au­thor­i­ties act­ed faster and quick­er.

Set­ting aside his hat as Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter for a mo­ment, Symon de No­bri­ga strug­gled as he re­vealed, “I am bro­ken to­day. I have lost not just a col­league. I have lost a sis­ter to­day.”

Asked about claims that the fire ser­vice had not re­spond­ed in a time­ly man­ner, he claimed in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed to him in­di­cat­ed they ar­rived 11 min­utes af­ter re­ceiv­ing the re­port.”

He said, “I don’t know that it can be truth­ful­ly said that there was a lack of a re­sponse but of course, in the midst of a tragedy, it is very easy to start point­ing fin­gers.”

De No­bri­ga urged per­sons to re­mem­ber Mor­ris-Ju­lian as the lov­ing and hum­ble per­son she had been.

Fire of­fi­cials lat­er de­fend­ed their ac­tions re­gard­ing re­sponse times, as they said they had no is­sues with wa­ter or fire-fight­ing equip­ment—but as one per­son ad­mit­ted, up­on ar­rival, they found the house to be well-en­gulfed.

Al­so ad­dress­ing the me­dia at the scene was Hare­wood-Christo­pher, who ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to the rel­a­tives of the Mor­ris-Ju­lian clan.

Af­ter be­ing briefed by of­fi­cials, the top cop as­sured in­ves­ti­ga­tions would con­tin­ue apace and that it would be giv­en the ap­pro­pri­ate pri­or­i­ty.

The re­mains of the three were tak­en to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, where au­top­sies were con­duct­ed to de­ter­mine the ex­act cause of death.