Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der says greater co­or­di­na­tion among the po­lice, fire and am­bu­lance ser­vices is need­ed to en­sure a more ef­fec­tive emer­gency re­sponse.

Alexan­der was speak­ing yes­ter­day at the open­ing of the tem­po­rary Princes Town Fire Sta­tion at the old URP Build­ing on King Street, which was re­fur­bished at a cost of $229,801.25.

The fire sta­tion had been closed for more than two years be­cause of a rat in­fes­ta­tion and oth­er health and safe­ty con­cerns.

Ex­plain­ing the pres­ence of Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro at the cer­e­mo­ny, Alexan­der said there had been in­stances in which po­lice of­fi­cers ar­rived at emer­gen­cies with­out the fire and am­bu­lance ser­vices be­ing alert­ed.

“Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty has vi­sion and what we see hap­pen­ing over the years is that our re­sponse, some­times time­ly, not al­ways ad­e­quate. Mean­ing that we have the po­lice ar­riv­ing, but the fire ser­vice, the am­bu­lance team was nev­er in­formed,” he said.

“So now we're wait­ing prob­a­bly to save a life. So, we are think­ing and pack­ag­ing our next move. How to get the po­lice ser­vice, the am­bu­lance ser­vice, the fire ser­vice to­geth­er. So, when we re­spond, we re­spond like a team.”

Alexan­der said once po­lice se­cure an area and in­jured peo­ple are iden­ti­fied, the oth­er emer­gency ser­vices must be able to re­spond im­me­di­ate­ly.

“It’s one pack­age and not sev­er­al pack­ages,” he said.

While the re­open­ing re­stores an es­sen­tial ser­vice to res­i­dents, Alexan­der said the Gov­ern­ment is al­so con­sid­er­ing pro­vid­ing ded­i­cat­ed fire cov­er­age for Moru­ga, ac­knowl­edg­ing that lengthy re­sponse times can cost lives.

Speak­ing to re­porters af­ter­wards, he said Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was con­cerned about the dis­tance be­tween Princes Town and Moru­ga and its im­pact on emer­gency re­sponse times.

“So, we will have to do some­thing about Moru­ga, even if it is to put a sub­sta­tion or along those lines that could help the peo­ple of Moru­ga,” he said.

Alexan­der said the Princes Town sta­tion serves 56 com­mu­ni­ties and a pop­u­la­tion of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 118,500 peo­ple.

He al­so urged fire of­fi­cers to re­spond prompt­ly to calls for as­sis­tance and not al­low re­quests to “fall on deaf ears”.

The min­is­ter en­cour­aged of­fi­cers to vis­it schools and busi­ness­es to ed­u­cate peo­ple about fire safe­ty and en­sure that fire ex­tin­guish­ers are avail­able and func­tion­ing.

Chief Fire Of­fi­cer Andy Hutchin­son said the sta­tion’s clo­sure had cre­at­ed sig­nif­i­cant op­er­a­tional gaps, forc­ing sur­round­ing sta­tions, in­clud­ing Mon Re­pos, Pe­nal and Rio Claro, to pro­vide cov­er­age for Princes Town and neigh­bour­ing com­mu­ni­ties.

“In an emer­gency, every sec­ond mat­ters. Dis­tance adds time, and time can cost lives, homes and liveli­hoods,” Hutchin­son said.

He said the King Street fa­cil­i­ty, al­though an in­ter­im so­lu­tion, would pro­vide a ded­i­cat­ed lo­cal team and emer­gency re­sponse ve­hi­cle, al­low­ing fire­fight­ers to reach in­ci­dents with­in min­utes.

Com­mu­ni­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tive and busi­ness­man Taru­el Teelucks­ingh said the re­open­ing had re­stored a sense of peace and pos­i­tiv­i­ty among res­i­dents, who could now ex­pect a quick­er re­sponse dur­ing emer­gen­cies.

Princes Town MP Aiy­na Ali and Na­pari­ma MP Narindra Roop­nar­ine al­so said res­i­dents and busi­ness­es would have greater peace of mind with a func­tion­ing fire sta­tion near­by.

Ali said she had worked tire­less­ly to have the sta­tion re­opened, adding that its clo­sure had left res­i­dents de­pen­dent on fire sta­tions out­side Princes Town, with longer re­sponse times some­times re­sult­ing in greater prop­er­ty loss.