The end of the year is too late for Ste. Anne fire truck

In 2002, the former mayors of three former cities served by the Ste. Anne fire station at the time (Baie d'Urfe, Senneville and Ste. Anne) met the media to discuss problems with fire-safety coverage. Here we are, nearly a decade later, discussing the same problems.

Montreal's city administration led by Gerald Tremblay but represented here by executive-committee member Claude Dauphin has indicated time after time after time it would rather spend millions on crooked water-meter deals of thousands on expensive wines during working lunches than on the safety and protection of West Islanders

Dauphin, who is in charge of public safety and security for the omnipotent executive committee, said the situation should be rectified by the end of the year.

"We'll make sure that they get (the tanker) this year in 2009 with trained firefighters," Dauphin said, adding the tanker would require training five firefighters to use it properly.

Um, Claude? That's already too late. As our Raffy Boudjikanian reports in today's edition, a number of Senneville residents have had to set up their own hydrant, often attached to swimming pools, to ensure firefighters would have enough water on hand to fight fires in that area, because many homes there are not tied to an aqueduct. Many properties in Senneville are near the Lake of Two Mountains, but frozen water in the winter and low levels in the summer due to evaporation would make it inefficient for firefighters to use.

In December, a fire on Ile Bizard ravaged a multi-million dollar mansion on Bord du Lac Street. Firefighters at the time had to break into the frozen waters of Rivière des Prairies to fetch water, since the neighbourhood was also untied to any aqueduct, and no large tanker was available. The home was destroyed completely.

Fortunately, no one died in that incident, but the similarities between that situation and the one currently ongoing on the western tip of the island are eerily similar, and if it were truly concerned about residents' safety, that tanker would be in Ste. Anne this time tomorrow.