They let it burn!
January 21, 1944, a major fire broke out on the rue des Cascades, opposite the fire station of Saint-Hyacinthe.
In the space of a few hours, seven shops and five homes were razed to the ground; the quadrilateral formed Cascade streets, St. Mary, Calixa-Lavallée and Duclos is in ruins.
Yet the Fire response time is almost nil and they are helped in their efforts by the Navy School of the fire.
And that's what makes this particular disaster.In the edition of January 28, 1944 the Courrier de Saint-Hyacinthe , Harry Bernard asks in an editorial why firefighters were so helpless. The answer takes the form of a lack of water, a drop in pressure and inadequate machinery at the aqueduct.
The plot thickens the following week when Bernard returned to the charge by saying simply: they let burn! He even adds that the refusal of the city to accept the help of the Southern Canada Power for powering the pumps is largely responsible for the disaster; that do not agree to recognize the municipal authorities, including the mayor, Télesphore-Damien Bouchard in mind.
(Translation may contain errors)
©2016 Linda Sullivan-Simpson
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