by Ian Mabon
Originally published in The Tribune Wednesday, February 16, 2011, and is posted here with the kind permission of the author.
Having witnessed firsthand the fire that this morning (Monday, February 15, 2011) destroyed Kelly's dock and many of the surrounding businesses, the fire department stands disgraced yet again.
When my brother and I arrived at the scene shortly after 9am the fire, while well-established, had not yet fully engulfed the building. We were able to walk unhindered out to the seaside of the property where there were four employees of Betty K, assisted by one forklift, frantically trying to move items piled on the dockside to a place of safety. No fire engines were present either in front of the building or behind on the dockside where the northeast wind was funneling through the open warehouse doors feeding the blaze like a blast furnace. A lone senior police officer wearing khaki cruised serenely up and down in a police go fast boat, a mere spectator.
Shortly thereafter, a defence force small boat arrived bearing two small diesel pumps. We helped them to set up and prime the pumps using a five gallon bucket on the end of a fire hose to pull water from the harbour. These needless to say were totally inadequate for the task; we might as well have been pissing on the fire. The harbour tugs, which are supposedly equipped for firefighting, sat impotently moored to the quay a hundred yards away. The good Lord help us if we ever have a cruise ship fire.
By this time the building was fully engulfed and starting to implode, so we returned to the Bay Street side where finally a fire engine arrived. The crew dithered around for more than ten minutes before packing up their hoses and leaving, not one drop of water ever came out of that particular engine. Shortly thereafter a phalanx of police officers approached carrying barricades shouting for us to be gone while some of the spectators shouted back "y'all so f…..g dumb, y'all need to bring water not barricades." My sentiments exactly.
At this point the shops on Bay Street were in imminent danger of becoming engulfed and still no engines on that side. Grumbling in disgust, I returned to my office asking myself, did we learn nothing from the straw market fire?
Apparently not.
