KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Screams from Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian and her two chil­dren con­tin­ue to haunt neigh­bours on Far­fan Street in Ari­ma.

This was the rev­e­la­tion from neigh­bours yes­ter­day, as they re­called the chill­ing mo­ments the three died in a fire that en­gulfed their home.

Neigh­bours al­so again ex­pressed the view that the three would still be alive had the T&T Fire Ser­vice (TTFS) ar­rived soon­er.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at the scene yes­ter­day, one neigh­bour re­called hear­ing Lisa’s daugh­ter Xi­anne cry out for help from in­side the burn­ing house.

“She was scream­ing and bawl­ing ‘Dad­dy! Dad­dy! I can’t see any­thing, dad­dy!”

Guardian Me­dia ob­tained ex­clu­sive CCTV footage which cap­tured the scene of the fire. De­spite the fire ser­vice claim­ing it took 11 min­utes to ar­rive at the scene, CCTV footage showed oth­er­wise. Ac­cord­ing to eye­wit­ness­es, the fire start­ed short­ly af­ter 5.30 am and be­gan spread­ing very quick­ly.

An­oth­er neigh­bour, Se­le­na Madoo, called the fire ser­vice, im­me­di­ate­ly. Show­ing her call log as proof, Madoo said a call was made to the fire ser­vice’s hot­line, 990, at 5.38 am but there was no an­swer.

By 5.44 am, there was a loud ex­plo­sion as the front por­tion of the house was en­gulfed in flames. Mo­ments lat­er, a sec­ond ex­plo­sion was heard as the rest of the house went up in flames.

Taxi dri­vers were the first on the scene, fol­lowed by oth­er neigh­bours, but there was lit­tle they could do as the fire raged. Sev­er­al men who jumped the wall and ran in­to the yard al­so re­ceived mi­nor in­juries.

At 5.45 am, Madoo called the Ari­ma Fire Ser­vice.

She said she told an of­fi­cer that Lisa and her rel­a­tives were trapped in­side. One minute lat­er (5.46 am) she called T&TEC.

Fran­tic neigh­bours said they ran to the fire sta­tion on Green Street, which is walk­ing dis­tance from Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s home, for help af­ter no one re­spond­ed to the call.

An­oth­er neigh­bour, a for­mer fire of­fi­cer, said he be­lieved even if of­fi­cers re­spond­ed on foot they would have been able to help save them.

He said, “I went to the sta­tion. There were three of­fi­cers I ob­served at the fire sta­tion at the time. Well, three of­fi­cers awake at the time. I gave them the in­for­ma­tion, telling them that the min­is­ter and her chil­dren were trapped in­side. There was no ur­gency in­volved. They just took the in­for­ma­tion and the fe­male of­fi­cer, she said, ‘We in­formed Tu­na­puna, Tu­na­puna re­spond­ing’. But in my opin­ion, based on my years of ex­pe­ri­ence, it’s ridicu­lous... Why the fire ser­vice re­spon­ders didn’t re­turn to the scene where lives were in­volved? The first pri­or­i­ty of the Fire Ser­vice is to save lives.”

While the Fire Ser­vice and Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter ar­gued over whether there was a wa­ter prob­lem yes­ter­day, neigh­bours said there was wa­ter in the area.

Ari­ma bor­ough work­ers clean­ing the streets at the time no­ticed the fire and al­so called in the bor­ough’s wa­ter truck to ren­der as­sis­tance. The bor­ough’s truck ar­rived be­fore the fire ser­vice, they said. Work­ers made sev­er­al trips from O’Meara Road trans­port­ing wa­ter.

By 5.50 am, CCTV footage cap­tured Lisa’s hus­band Daniel, sis­ter Tra­cy, el­dest son Ix­i­ah, daugh­ter Anya and her boyfriend Ed­ward es­cap­ing from the house.

Wit­ness­es said they were all cov­ered in ash­es and in to­tal shock.

One wit­ness said Daniel kept say­ing, “They dead, they dead.”

An­oth­er eye­wit­ness said if it were not for Ed­ward’s ef­fort to save the rel­a­tives, Lisa’s oth­er chil­dren would not have sur­vived. She said he was the true hero.

The Fire Ser­vice, T&TEC and the TTPS were yet to ar­rive at the scene then.

Lisa and the two oth­er chil­dren nev­er made it out.

Neigh­bours claim fire of­fi­cers ac­com­pa­nied by the am­bu­lance ar­rived about an hour af­ter.

Daniel, Ix­i­ah and Anya were tak­en to the hos­pi­tal.

Ix­i­ah and Anya were re­leased from hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day.

On Mon­day, au­top­sies were done on Mor­ris-Ju­lian and the chil­dren.

While the house was noth­ing but a burnt-out struc­ture, bare­ly stand­ing yes­ter­day, Guardian Me­dia ob­served an aquar­i­um with a gold­fish in­side, still alive.

Neigh­bours said the fam­i­ly’s dogs al­so sur­vived.

Fu­ner­al arrange­ments are yet to be fi­nalised for the trio.

Lisa: A moth­er to all

As neigh­bours con­tin­ued to grap­ple with the fi­nal trag­ic mo­ments for Mor­ris-Ju­lian and her chil­dren yes­ter­day, oth­ers close to her were try­ing to hold on to their best mem­o­ries of her.

Her neigh­bours, friends and con­stituents all said she was ex­treme­ly hum­ble, help­ful and a beau­ti­ful hu­man be­ing. When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed her D’Abadie/O’Meara con­stituen­cy of­fice on Tumpuna Road, of­fice man­ag­er Michael Simp­son and her per­son­al as­sis­tant Ter­isa Lewis-Coutou on­ly had pos­i­tive things to say about their de­ceased boss.

De­scrib­ing her as a moth­er fig­ure in her life, Lewis-Coutou said Mor­ris-Ju­lian was al­ways there to sup­port her both in and out­side of work, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter she lost her own moth­er a few years ago.

Simp­son, who had worked close­ly with Mor­ris-Ju­lian for over a decade, said she was prepar­ing for the con­stituen­cy’s Christ­mas par­ty.

Cal­vary coun­cil­lor Je­niece Scott, who shared a moth­er-daugh­ter re­la­tion­ship with Mor­ris-Ju­lian, said she was her men­tor for sev­er­al years. She last saw Mor­ris-Ju­lian at the Prime Min­is­ter’s Christ­mas cock­tail on Sat­ur­day.

An emo­tion­al Scott said, “When I just start­ed off in pol­i­tics, I was 23 and I was ab­solute­ly scared. I was ex­cit­ed but scared go­ing in­to pol­i­tics and she sat me down and said ‘Je­niece you can do it. I will be here with you every step of the way. I will nev­er let you fall.’ She re­al­ly nev­er did. She made sure and sup­port­ed me and gave me guid­ance that I will hold for the rest of my life. She made sure that she sup­port­ed young women, make sure and give them a good foot­ing. She was there all the time. When they say we lost a gem, we re­al­ly lost a gem.”

Coun­cil­lor for Mal­abar South Joyce­lyn Wor­rell said Mor­ris-Ju­lian was a one-of-a-kind woman.

Wor­rell said, “MP took me un­der her wings. She is my men­tor. She took her time to train me and walk me through the job. She was a role mod­el. She was pas­sion­ate about youths. She was a bless­ing. With­out her, I don’t know what would hap­pen. ... That was her call­ing and I loved her tremen­dous­ly. I feel like this has re­al­ly, re­al­ly shat­tered me to the core.”