Faulty hydrants a major concern

Angelo Laurence, Gleaner Writer

MANDEVILLE, Manchester:

There are growing concerns about the lack of adequate working fire hydrants in the parish to protect its residents and their properties in case there is a major fire.

As such, mayor of Mandeville, Brenda Ramsay, and councillors Sally Porteous of the Mandeville division, and Leroy Mitchell of the Walderston division recently urged the Department of Local Government to give the matter more attention. They were discussing the issue at last month's parish council meeting.

Sore point

The lack of adequate working fire hydrants in the parish's major towns, particularly where there are large housing schemes and shopping plazas, has been a sore point between the National Water Commission (NWC), the Manchester Parish Council and the Jamaica Fire Brigade, since 1997.

Businessmen in Christiana, the parish's second-largest town, fear that the town is ideal for a major fire disaster if the situation is not corrected.

They claim that the problem is compounded by the poor main-tenance history of the fire trucks at the Christiana fire station. One fireman at the station said, at times there are no working fire trucks at the station for extended periods. He also said, the station's fire trucks often has to respond to fire calls in the neighbouring parishes of St Ann and Clarendon.

Repairs

Deputy Superintendent Neville Bennett, the officer in charge of the Manchester fire brigade, told The Gleaner recently that nearly 300 of the parish's 582 fire hydrants were not working. He has since indicated that several of them have been repaired, although he did not say how many and their location. Statistics showed that the Manchester fire brigade responded to 77 calls, of which 51 were calls to extinguish fires, in August, which resulted in $13.2 million in losses.