Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds has again re­in­forced Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion that wa­ter avail­abil­i­ty was not a fac­tor in the T&T Fire Ser­vice’s (TTFS) re­sponse to the fire that trag­i­cal­ly claimed the lives of D’Abadie/O’Meara MP Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian, her son Je­si­ah, six, and daugh­ter Xi­anne, 25, on De­cem­ber 16.

Hinds con­firmed re­ceiv­ing the fi­nal re­port on the in­ci­dent from for­mer chief fire of­fi­cer Roo­sevelt Bruce last Fri­day dur­ing a morn­ing TV pro­gramme yes­ter­day. Bruce’s team was re­spon­si­ble for prob­ing the TTFS re­sponse to the in­ci­dent.

While he would not go in­to the ma­jor de­tails of the re­port, say­ing it was still un­der re­view by the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, Hinds con­firmed, “I can say con­fi­dent­ly that wa­ter was not the is­sue in this tragedy.”

While ac­knowl­edg­ing that wa­ter chal­lenges have ex­ist­ed in Trinidad and To­ba­go in the past, Hinds as­sured, “The Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties has made sig­nif­i­cant strides in ad­dress­ing wa­ter is­sues na­tion­wide. In this in­stance, how­ev­er, wa­ter avail­abil­i­ty did not hin­der the Fire Ser­vice’s re­sponse.”

Mor­ris-Ju­lian and her chil­dren died from smoke in­hala­tion. The in­ves­ti­ga­tion has ruled out foul play.

Hinds con­firmed that the Fire Ser­vice had been at­tend­ing an­oth­er fire at Manuel Con­go at the time of the in­ci­dent, which de­layed their re­sponse.

He as­sured the pub­lic that Gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to ad­dress­ing the short­com­ings iden­ti­fied in the re­port. “This tragedy has caused im­mense sor­row and pub­lic dis­qui­et,” he said.

“We owe it to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go to un­cov­er the facts and ad­dress the de­fi­cien­cies in our emer­gency re­sponse sys­tems.”

Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, Act­ing Chief Fire Of­fi­cer Andy Hutchin­son clar­i­fied that while wa­ter was not an is­sue, hy­drant pres­sure was low.

“We had suf­fi­cient wa­ter to fight the fire,” Hutchin­son said, adding, “The low hy­drant pres­sure was some­thing we not­ed and re­port­ed. How­ev­er, this did not im­pact our abil­i­ty to re­spond ef­fec­tive­ly.”

Hutchin­son ex­plained that this was high­light­ed in the Fire Ser­vice’s me­dia re­lease and sup­port­ed by op­er­a­tional logs from the Ari­ma Fire Sta­tion, which is a stone’s throw away from the Far­fan Street, Ari­ma home of Mor­ris- Ju­lian.

Hutchin­son de­clined to com­ment fur­ther un­til hear­ing the re­port’s con­tents when it is made pub­lic.

Al­so con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Fire Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Keon Guy re­it­er­at­ed the long-stand­ing con­cerns about in­ad­e­quate re­sources with­in the TTFS. “The Fire Ser­vice has been un­der-re­sourced for years, and this has im­pact­ed our abil­i­ty to ef­fec­tive­ly car­ry out our du­ties,” Guy said.

He em­pha­sised that while the of­fi­cers at the scene were able to over­come wa­ter-re­lat­ed chal­lenges, the re­al is­sue lay in the in­ad­e­qua­cies of fire pro­tec­tion in Ari­ma and oth­er ar­eas.

“The lack of ad­e­quate fire pro­tec­tion in Ari­ma was a sig­nif­i­cant con­tribut­ing fac­tor to this tragedy,” Guy said.

Guy al­so crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment for wait­ing un­til a tragedy of this mag­ni­tude to act.

“It is un­for­tu­nate that it took the deaths of MP Mor­ris-Ju­lian and her chil­dren for the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to launch an in­quiry and con­duct a thor­ough analy­sis of the Fire Ser­vice,” he said.

When asked if he had any in­for­ma­tion about pend­ing sus­pen­sions re­sult­ing from the re­port’s find­ings, Guy stressed that dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion, if war­rant­ed, would fall un­der the purview of the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC).

“The Bruce in­ves­ti­ga­tors do not have the au­thor­i­ty to make such de­ter­mi­na­tions. If there is a case for dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion, it would need to be han­dled by the com­mis­sion,” he said.

He re­it­er­at­ed the as­so­ci­a­tion’s hope that the tragedy would prompt long-over­due in­vest­ments in the Fire Ser­vice.

“We wel­come the at­ten­tion on the Fire Ser­vice and hope this re­sults in the re­sources and sup­port we need to up­hold our man­date to pro­tect the pub­lic,” Guy said.