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  • 9 months ago
Homeland Security Minister Roger Alexander says returning displaced fire officers back to the Princes Town Fire station will be a priority.

The station has been closed for close to a year, leaving a large geographical area without the assurance of having a fire tender on standby in case of an emergency.

In the last two weeks, at least three homes were destroyed by fire in that area, renewing calls from the community to rebuild, renovate or reopen the existing station.

On Monday the Minister toured the abandoned building and told our reporter Cindy Raghubar-Teekersingh, he’s been mandated to find a solution in the shortest possible time.

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Transcript
00:00When the Princess Town Fire Station closed in July 2024 due to a rat infestation, over 30 fire officers were relocated to the Rio Claro and Pinal Fire Stations, leaving over 200,000 residents vulnerable.
00:15Communities from as far as Marak Maruga, Barakpur, Princess Town, Tableland, Tabakit and parts of St. Madeline no longer benefited from a nearby fire tender.
00:25On Monday, Homeland Security Minister Roger Alexander toured the closed Princess Town Fire Station alongside the area's MP, members of the Princess Town Regional Corporation and senior officers within the Trinidad and Tobago Fire Service.
00:41Our Prime Minister spoke to both the MP of Princess Town and myself and told us no matter what we found here today, we must fix it.
00:52Minister Alexander says finding a solution will be a priority of the current government and finding one in the shortest possible time.
01:02Sometimes we need to move away from the bureaucracy involved in all of this and get to the serving of the people.
01:12He says while technical teams will also have to visit the old site to do an assessment, consideration is being given to finding a new location altogether once it benefits the area.
01:24It doesn't have to be listened, but to get the officers back up and running and servicing the area of Princess Town is what we require.
01:33So it could mean either here or there or there at the end of the day.
01:39But at the end of the day, constituency of Princess Town must benefit from having a fire service personnel here.
01:47The calls to have this station reopened were renewed after multiple fires destroyed homes in the Moruga and Princess Town areas in the last week.
01:57The fire is traumatic to anyone, to any family.
02:00So I can't imagine what they would have been going through.
02:04And knowing that something could have been done in a faster time and it was not, I mean that is heartbreaking.
02:11Cindy Raghuabantika Singh, TV6 News.
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