Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, Mar­vin Gon­za­les is call­ing for a re­trac­tion from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice (TTFS) fol­low­ing their state­ment re­gard­ing the house fire that killed Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, and her two chil­dren.

The TTFS had said that “a re­quest was made for ad­di­tion­al wa­ter sup­ply due to a lack of wa­ter in the area,” which the min­is­ter is re­fut­ing. Gon­za­les, in a mid­night me­dia re­lease, said that at no point dur­ing the in­ci­dent was there a lack of wa­ter or wa­ter pres­sure in the Far­fan Street area.

He ex­plained that the Hol­lis Sys­tem, which sup­plied wa­ter to Far­fan Street, ramped up to full pro­duc­tion on De­cem­ber 12, 2024, and the pro­duc­tion in­creased again on De­cem­ber 15, 2024, due to im­prove­ments in the Hol­lis Reser­voir. WASA took im­me­di­ate ac­tion to di­vert sup­ply from the Subero Street Boost­er to in­crease pres­sure in the area, and an aux­il­iary sup­ply from the Gua­napo Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant was in­tro­duced to en­sure re­li­a­bil­i­ty. These mea­sures were im­ple­ment­ed be­fore the ar­rival of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice, the re­lease ex­plained.

Gon­za­les al­so not­ed that when Prime Min­is­ter Dr. Kei­th Row­ley vis­it­ed the scene, he in­quired with the Chief Fire Of­fi­cer about the wa­ter sup­ply avail­able to at­tend to the fire, and the Chief Fire Of­fi­cer con­firmed that an ad­e­quate sup­ply was avail­able.

This is a de­vel­op­ing sto­ry.