The Tribune

By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS

Tribune Staff Reporter

lmunnings@tribunemedia.net

A GREAT Harbour Cay family of nine is homeless after an early morning fire destroyed their house yesterday.

More than a week after a fire in Bimini displaced 22 residents, the incident is the latest to expose the inadequate emergency services on some Family Islands, with residents saying no firefighting equipment was available to extinguish yesterday’s blaze.

North Andros and Berry Islands MP Leonardo Lightbourne said authorities are trying to determine the cause of the fire.

“I know that police are doing their investigation at the moment,” he told The Tribune. “From what I heard thus far, it was something sparked in the home, and one of the younger kids in the home was brave enough and saw it and woke up everybody in the home and that’s how everybody made it out in terms of the fire. But I think it’s a bit more electrical than anything, but the police are still doing their investigation and as soon as we get information, we’ll be able to speak more about what took place.”

Mr Lightbourne said the blaze happened between 4am and 5am.

He said area MP and Minister of Social Services Obie Wilchcombe travelled to the island with a delegation to assess the damage. He said officials had offered the displaced family housing and food.

“The family is now in a safe place,” he said. “They’ve already been sorted with accommodations along with food items, etc. And so, we are doing everything that we can to ensure that their lives are still somewhat in normalcy. It’s a lot more to be done but as time goes on, we’ll put some more initiatives in place to ensure that the family is back to normal.”

Mr Lightbourne confirmed there is no firefighting equipment on the cay, but said he is confident this will be corrected shortly.

“To be honest, we had a fire truck that was donated at some point, however, that fire engine truck was retrieved back from the original owner,” he said.

“However, there hasn’t been a fire truck in, I want to say about two to three months. This has just been a (recent) situation, this hasn’t been something that’s been ongoing. Prior to that, (it) might have been eight months since the fire truck might have been there and since that it has been removed.”

“The issue here isn’t just a Great Harbour Cay issue. I mean if you go through the entire Family Islands, we lack numerous infrastructures and equipment in terms of medical facilities and so forth, so this isn’t just a Great Harbour issue, this is an issue we need to put hands-on throughout the entire Bahamas, and we’re moving towards having those issues resolved as a government.”