Westmoreland councillors say fire station urgently needed

WESTERN BUREAU:

Councillors at the monthly meeting of the Westmoreland Municipal Corporation (WMC) on Thursday, March 9, say that, had the authorities heeded their call for a fire station to be set up in western Westmoreland, the mother and child who perished in a fire in Berkshire district on Monday could have been saved.

The mother, 37-year-old Keisha Walters and her son, five-year-old Joel Brown, were found in the rubble of their burnt-out home by firefighters from Savanna-la-Mar.

Councillor Ian Myles, of the Little London division, remarked that, with Berkshire nearly 50 miles away from Savanna-la-Mar, it was impossible for the fire service to be effective in saving the lives of Walters and her son.

“Apart from the distance the trucks have to travel, one has to take into consideration that it is a hilly terrain with winding roads,” said Myles.

WMC’s Deputy Mayor Danree Delancey, who is the councillor for the Bethel Town division, said, “It is a terrible situation because it took the fire truck nearly two hours to get there. Not the fault of the fire department, but simply the distance from Savanna-la-Mar to Berkshire. This serves to (highlight) the need for the fire station in Bethel Town, which is 15 to 20 minutes away if you have a fire.”

“If the truck is going to take two hours to get to a location, it basically makes no sense,” said Delancey, referencing the size of the parish and the hilly terrain in some sections.

For several years, the WMC has been advocating to have a fire station built in Bethel Town, and had even identified lands on which it could be constructed. The representatives say that their call did not receive a favourable response from the Government.

Delancey says there can be no good reason for a further delay in establishing such a crucial service in western Westmoreland, and is calling for a unified stance in the WMC in demanding the much-needed fire station. His position was further supported by Myles, who added that the station would benefit communities beyond Westmoreland.

“We have been calling for this facility since 2007, and such a facility will not only serve Westmoreland but communities like Cambridge and Montpelier, St James, and New Market and Pisgah, in St Elizabeth; and Chester Castle, Ramble, and Knockalva, in Hanover.”

In 2014, the Japanese government, through the Society for Promotion of Japanese Diplomacy, donated two fire trucks and two ambulances valued at $8.1 million to the Westmoreland Municipal Corporation (WMC), to boost the parish’s emergency response to acts of natural disasters and to establish a fire substation in Bethel Town.