DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds has un­til this af­ter­noon to set up a com­mit­tee to in­ves­ti­gate the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the trag­ic deaths of Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian, her 25-year-old daugh­ter Xi­anne and six-year-old son Je­si­ah, af­ter their Far­fan Street, Ari­ma home went up in flames on Mon­day.

Ad­dress­ing the me­dia at the un­veil­ing of a plaque at West Park in Diego Mar­tin yes­ter­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said the in­struc­tion was giv­en by the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (NSC), which he leads, fol­low­ing con­flict­ing re­ports about the in­ci­dent and a pub­lic dis­pute be­tween the T&T Fire Ser­vice and Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties.

Row­ley said he met with a small del­e­ga­tion from the NSC yes­ter­day morn­ing and sub­se­quent­ly met with Hinds at mid­day to give the in­struc­tions.

“We need to know what hap­pened. Why would a fire sta­tion on the cor­ner of Far­fan Street, why the fire ten­der got there at the time that we now know he got there? And I can tell you, we have been re­ceiv­ing con­flict­ing in­for­ma­tion and as a re­sult of that, to­day, the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil di­rect­ed the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to come up by to­mor­row af­ter­noon with an ap­pro­pri­ate com­mit­tee to in­ves­ti­gate why there wasn’t a bet­ter re­sponse with a fire sta­tion on the cor­ner.”

Say­ing he was “very con­cerned” about peo­ple “jump­ing on the band­wag­on” to com­ment on how many fire sta­tions the coun­try should have and the num­ber of fire ten­ders that should be as­signed to each fire sta­tion in T&T, Row­ley said those is­sues did not arise in this case.

Giv­ing a time­line of what oc­curred on Mon­day, in the af­ter­math of Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s death, Row­ley said he ar­rived at the scene at 7.45 am, hav­ing learned about the in­ci­dent an hour ear­li­er. He said he first met Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s fam­i­ly and sum­moned the se­nior of­fi­cer in charge, As­sis­tant Chief Fire Of­fi­cer Earl Samp­son, who came with act­ing Chief Fire Of­fi­cer Andy Hutchin­son.

“I specif­i­cal­ly asked, did you have any prob­lems with wa­ter? Try­ing to find out whether that may have con­tributed to the fact that the build­ing went the way you have re­port­ed. I was told by both gen­tle­men there was no prob­lem with wa­ter, and more­so, they had back­ups in place in the event that there was a prob­lem and that they had full co­op­er­a­tion from the en­ti­ties, and I pre­sume that meant WASA. That is what I was told,” he said.

Row­ley said he was, there­fore, quite sur­prised to learn via the news on Mon­day night that among the prob­lems they had was no wa­ter in the area.

“I im­me­di­ate­ly called the (Pub­lic Util­i­ties) Min­is­ter to ask him whether or not there is a sit­u­a­tion in Ari­ma Cen­tral.

“The min­is­ter then con­firmed to me that even be­fore this hor­ri­ble in­ci­dent, we had just com­plet­ed tak­ing steps from the Gua­napo and (in­audi­ble) to en­sure that the im­prove­ment of wa­ter should have left and has left Ari­ma Cen­tral with an ad­e­quate sup­ply of wa­ter.”

He said while peo­ple have de­mand­ed more fire sta­tions be placed on street cor­ners, the one on the cor­ner of Green Street, a block away from Far­fan Street, failed to save Mor­ris-Ju­lian and her two chil­dren.

“We need to know the undis­put­ed facts,” he stressed.

Re­spond­ing via What­sApp, CFO Hutchin­son ad­mit­ted to Guardian Me­dia that the Prime Min­is­ter did ask whether wa­ter chal­lenges af­fect­ed their re­sponse to the blaze.

“The an­swer giv­en by the As­sis­tant Chief Fire Of­fi­cer in my pres­ence was that there was no is­sue with the wa­ter sup­ply. This was so, as we had in at­ten­dance a wa­ter truck from the cor­po­ra­tion and the Ari­ma Fire Sta­tion crew was able to re­turn in time with ten thou­sand litres on the tanker so as­signed.”

He said he had no is­sue with the es­tab­lish­ment of the com­mit­tee.

“I have ab­solute­ly no prob­lem. This should bring to the fore some of the de­fi­cien­cies plagu­ing this or­gan­i­sa­tion.”

He al­so con­demned fin­ger-point­ing at the hard-work­ing fire of­fi­cers who re­spond­ed to the blaze.

“The blame game I will not be­come a part of, as the of­fi­cers would have worked dili­gent­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly in ex­tin­guish­ing this fire. The fire of­fi­cers of this no­ble or­gan­i­sa­tion con­tin­ue to serve this coun­try and its peo­ple with de­plet­ed re­sources and have done so for an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od of time. To my of­fi­cers, you are all he­roes, loved and re­spect­ed. Con­tin­ue to forge ahead bold­ly and serve as I will stand with you to the end.”

Hutchin­son al­so in­sist­ed “there will be no re­trac­tion” of the Fire Ser­vice’s ini­tial re­port that there was a lack of wa­ter in the area to re­spond to the in­fer­no.

Mean­while, Row­ley con­demned Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Gowrie Roop­nar­ine and the Fire Ser­vice for ped­dling mis­in­for­ma­tion on the Princes Town Fire Sta­tion.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia on Tues­day, Roop­nar­ine lament­ed the clo­sure of the PTFS five months ago due to a ro­dent in­fes­ta­tion.

How­ev­er, Row­ley con­demned the com­ments as mis­chie­vous. He al­so crit­i­cised the Fire Ser­vice for re­main­ing mum in the face of Roop­nar­ine’s com­ments.

“The build­ing, by age, has de­te­ri­o­rat­ed be­yond its use­ful life so we had to close it. Steps are in place, we are ac­tu­al­ly in the process now of re­mov­ing that build­ing and re­plac­ing it with a new build­ing.

“So, when you hear peo­ple talk­ing to in­cite the pub­lic, they tell you what you want to hear be­cause that con­ver­sa­tion about the Princes Town Fire Sta­tion, that is known to the Fire Ser­vice.”