Families For Justice is speaking out over the lack of a fire station, the number of working fire hydrants, fire trucks and adequate manpower in Grand Bahama.
President Glenroy Bethel insisted that to be faced with any one of these issues in 2013 is unacceptable.
The fact that there is still no fire station in the nation’s second city, despite several cases where residents, churches and businesses have been lost, is unbelievable and unthinkable, the organization points out.
“It has been almost a decade and the community of Grand Bahama is still without service that is vital for this community,” Bethell said.
Since the fire station was destroyed by hurricane in 2004, residents have long been crying out for another one.
Back in November 2006, the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Security Dr. Cynthia “Mother” Pratt received six acres of land conveyed to the government by the Grand Bahama Development Company. The property was located just east of St. John’s Jubilee Cathedral on Settler’s Way.
It was then revealed that the land was to house not only a fire station, but a police station for the neighboring Heritage subdivision as well.
However, the PLP maintained that the plans their administration left in place were discarded as a part of the Free National Movement government’s “Stop, Review and Cancel” policy.
It was in mid-August 2011, then Minister of Works Neko Grant had announced that his government would move ahead with three capital projects in Grand Bahama, one of them being the construction of a fire station.
In early 2012, Grant revealed that bids were going out for a new fire station on Settler’s Way and construction was to begin in four to five weeks.
Grant also insisted then that a contract would have been signed before May 7 and that the FNM government was going to deliver on its promise.
To date, however, residents of Grand Bahama are still awaiting a fire station.
The Families For Justice founder noted that several years ago, the work force for the fire branch was some 40-plus strong and today there are 15 workers for the entire community of Grand Bahama.
“This is unacceptable for any community with families and there livelihood at stake,” he said at a recent press conference.
“On the records, there were five deaths in Grand Bahama by fire. And we raise the question, if there were a fire station in place, adequate manpower, multiple fire trucks with equipment, fire hydrants installed throughout the community could those lives have been spared,” he said.
Two weeks ago, three families, including a two-year old, one-year old and a newborn baby, were left homeless, after fire completely engulfed their triplex in Deadman’s Reef.
Pastor Tyrone Thomas, safety programmer analyst at The Bahamas Police Refining Company (BORCO), who was called on to assist with the triplex fire but was unable to as there was no water in the area to service the company trucks, said when the only truck for the entire island arrived firefighters soon learned there was no fire hydrant in the area.
“There was no fire hydrants in the Holmes Rock, nor Jones Town area that had water, therefore the fire department had to travel all the way to the BaTelCo Corner in Eight Mile Rock to get water, which took them about 40 minutes before they could get refill,” Thomas told The Freeport News.
In fact, Kenrick Morris, officer in charge of the Fire Department, confirmed the fire department had to travel to the Eight Mile Rock area on three separate occasions to replenish after the fire truck ran out of water.
By Lededra Marche
Freeport News Editor