Bronx city councillor: 'It was painful to watch the heart of my district on fire'
CBC Radio | Posted: December 29, 2017 10:42 PM | Last Updated: December 29, 2017
New York City Coun. Ritchie Torres said he's doing whatever he can to make sure there's "no further disruption" in the lives of the people affected by the deadly fire that swept through a Bronx apartment building.
Twelve people are dead, including four children, after a devastating fire spread rapidly through the five-storey building Thursday night.
The blaze was caused by child playing with a stove on the first floor, the city's fire commissioner said Friday. The family fled to safety and left the apartment door open, allowing the flames move up the stairwell.
As It Happens guest host Helen Mann spoke with Torres, the city council member for the Central Bronx, where the tragedy took place. Here is part of that conversation.
Can you take us to the scene of the apartment building and the aftermath of the fire? Tell us what you've seen.
Just nothing but destruction in the apartments that were most affected.
There are, according to the New York Times, city records that say the building had some violations — four broken smoke detectors, a carbon monoxide detector in a first-floor apartment. Does that concern you as possibly being a factor in why this spread so quickly?
Of course we have to ensure that every apartment has a functioning smoke alarm and a fire alarm, but it seems to me there are two overarching lessons that I would draw from this tragedy.
It reminds us of the importance of raising awareness about fire prevention and fire safety, not only among adults, but also children. So we have to do more to educate children about the dangers playing with burners on stoves.
And then second, we have to remind people if there's ever a fire in your apartment and you're escaping, you have to close the door, because once the fire reaches an open stairwell, it will spiral out of control.
What are you hearing from the survivors, and I guess from the firefighters as well, about what it was like for the people inside that building during the fire — about how quickly it spread, the things they saw and heard?
Many of them are struggling to cope with the aftermath and with the trauma from losing their homes and losing their loved ones and losing their neighbours. And so many of them are struggling to re-establish stability in their lives.
You know, my office is doing whatever it can to ensure that those families have permanent housing arrangements to which to transition.
One family lost four members in the fire. I mean, that's incredibly devastating. What's being done for, I guess, the people who knew them?
The objective is to stabilize the lives of every person. But if you've lost family members in a fire as destructive as this one, you're going to require more than housing. You're going to require therapeutic supports, supports and social services of every kind.
And so my office is going to be available to those families as a resource. The city will be available to those families. The Red Cross has been at the front lines of addressing the needs of these families.
But it will take a long time for our community to recover.
What impact has this had on you personally? I understand when you realized how bad things were, it hit you pretty hard.
I can't help be affected because I'm deeply invested in the neighbourhood that I represent. This is the neighbourhood in which my office is located. It is the heart of my district. And it was painful to watch the heart of my district on fire yesterday
You can't be the only person who's feeling emotional around all of this. You mentioned support systems from the officials in the community, from the Red Cross. But just from people in the neighbourhood — what are they doing, what are they saying right now?
The response has been overwhelming. I have been bombarded with phone calls and texts and emails asking how people can be helpful. And so we're in the process of establishing a clothing drive and a donation drive for the benefit of the families displaced by the Belmont fire.
Sometimes when fires like this happen, people get dispersed pretty far from the neighbourhood in which they are comfortable and familiar. Do you think you'll be able to find accommodations for these people near where they're used to living?
I've had a number of the families who lost their homes call me and express concern about their possible relocation elsewhere in the city to boroughs like Brooklyn, and I will do whatever I can to make sure that those families have home here in their local neighbourhood in the Bronx.