The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

BOTH Commissioner of Police Paul Rolle and National Security Minister Marvin Dames responded yesterday to concerns about water pressure in New Providence in the wake of a major fire.

This comes after the Water and Sewerage Corporation said the New Providence “water supply system was not designed to provide fire flows”.

Earlier this week, Fire Services Chief Superintendent Kendrick Morris said while water was not an issue for tackling Sunday’s massive blaze on Jennie Street, pressure was a problem coming from the fire hydrant. For its part, WSC put out a media release on Wednesday responding to reports.

The release read: “As has been expressed by the corporation previously after major fires, our New Providence water supply system was not designed to provide fire flows. Fire flow systems usually have a design capacity in excess of 1,000 gallons per minute, however, only a limited amount of our transmission mains have that operational capacity.”

In view of the water pressure problem, Mr Dames replied “sometimes these are things that are going to be expected” but stressed that there are normally after event briefings helping to address issues.

“You get to scenes and the pressure may not be as high as you would like for it to be and so I mean obviously this is why you have departments like the fire department and the police force and the defence force and other agencies such as that would have what is normally referred to as an after event briefing.

“That briefing will assist them on how to address issues like that moving forward. It’s not serious by any extent because I mean the technology out there nowadays allows for tankers and additional water supply. This is not a hurdle that cannot be overcome and so I’m not aware of the after event briefing from the fire department through the commissioner of police.

“This is not a significant hurdle because as I said before technology is as such that you know, go to a scene, you take a few appliances as needs be, you add an additional tanker and that addresses your issue, especially when you’re struggling with water supplies. It’s not uncommon.”

When it was highlighted that WSC had expressed the matter with the water supply system previously after major fires, Mr Dames said “you have to look at each event on its merits”.

“I don’t have the benefit of what happened and... how it needs to be addressed moving forward. I will, once I’m briefed by the commissioner of police, will have that benefit and usually what comes in after an event briefing is you know what efforts were taken and which areas would need to be improved upon for future fires.”

WSC’s release said it will continue to work with the central government and Fire Services “for the installation of groundwater fire wells in strategic locations for firefighting purposes and for all fire equipment to be outfitted with high capacity suction and discharge pumping systems”.

“Our geography is such that we are surrounded by water and have a high water table, therefore our firefighting water supply strategy must be based on harnessing these natural resources in times of emergencies,” WSC said.

Yesterday, reporters highlighted these comments to Commissioner Rolle.

Asked about a plan in place in the event an incident like this occurred again, the police chief explained the back up plan if there is a failure of water.

“I do want to say though, you look at what looks like hydrants, they’re not all hydrants. Some of them are wells,” he said. “There’s no pressure and what would happen is if you find the situation that there’s no immediate hydrant, the truck can go to one of those and put the hose down and suck water out.

“I cannot speak for Water and Sewerage, but what I gave is the backup plan is that if there is failure with the water. You still see the red stand but we know the difference. Fire people know the difference. So if there is no water there, they are bore wells, so that is the backup plan should the situation with water fail.”

Some of the residents who lost their homes on Sunday believed they could have been saved and pointed to issues with water.

The commissioner made it clear that fire trucks come with water but said a truck can run out of it when dealing with a major fire like the one on Sunday.

He stated: “The fire truck carries 800 gallons of water I think and then there’s one that was a tanker. Okay you have a fire. You (are) pumping that water - the water is going to run out... So (a) major fire like that yes the trucks will run out. We depend on the hydrant. Those are the issues that we have to address and let us work together to get that up, but any time you have a fire you know the trucks will run out of water and then you go and replenish.”

He also said: “We don’t deal with the fire hydrants. There’s a department in one of the local departments that is responsible for that.”

Earlier this week, CSP Morris said it is the Ministry of Works’ responsibility to service and maintain the hydrants. However, he said, there is a water supply crew within the fire department that checks them and reports any concerns to the ministry.