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HomeNewsArchivesLack of Street Signs Hampers Firefighters' Efforts to Save Coral Bay Home

Lack of Street Signs Hampers Firefighters' Efforts to Save Coral Bay Home

Oct. 17, 2006 — When firefighters from the Coral Bay fire station were called late Monday to put out a house fire on the Bordeaux side of the Coral Bay area, they had trouble finding the house, Deputy Fire Chief Brian Chapman said Tuesday.
Eventually, the fire trucks found the correct route and extinguished the fire, but not before the house was totally destroyed.
The small wooden house sat about halfway up the hillside in a rapidly growing area, with new houses going up all over the hillside. Making matters worse, the roads twist and turn and dead end.
The roads also have no street signs, which Chapman said hampered the firefighters' ability to locate the house.
Chapman said that the firefighters tried to get to the house via a road that went above the fire but ultimately provided no access.
"It's the same old thing; people need to get those poles numbered," he said, referring to utility poles.
Coral Bay Community Council President Sharon Coldren, who lives across the valley at Upper Carolina, said she watched fire trucks first drive up Centerline Road before turning around to head across the valley, where the fire was lighting up the night sky.
St. John Administrator Julien Harley, who is a retired firefighter, said Monday night's situation points up the need for naming roads and numbering utility poles.
"There must be a concrete naming system," he said.
He said that some areas have several names and that longtime residents might know an area by one name, while newer residents might have dubbed it something else.
Harley said it was up to residents and the government to come up with names and get the utility poles numbered so emergency crews can locate the houses.
He said that while the fire was visible and helped guide firefighters, police and emergency medical technicians face the same challenges in locating homes.
"A life could be lost," Harley said.
Chapman said that while neighborhood associations in many areas across the island have banded together to name their roads and number their utility poles, this area consists of several neighborhoods with no common homeowners association. He said that in this case, it may fall to the Fire Service to solve the problem.
Harley advised residents to give directions when calling in an emergency. He said that if possible, they should send someone to the main road to guide emergency crews.
In Monday's fire, Chapman said the people who called in the fire were at work at Aqua Bistro Restaurant and Skinny Legs Bar and Restaurant. Both locations are located along the main road that skirts the harbor, not in the neighborhood where the fire burned.
Coldren said she also tried to call, but the phone just rang at the Coral Bay fire station. She said she finally called the Cruz Bay station, where she was told they already knew about the fire.
"And I tried to call Brian Chapman, but his phone just rang," she said.
Coldren wondered if the phones were out of order.
Community Council board member Kent Irish said the organization has developed names for the roads in the area where the fire occurred. However, he said volunteers have not yet put up street signs.
He also said a mapping system with Global Positioning System coordinates is in the works.
Irish said that blank street signs are available at the Community Council office in Coral Bay if residents want them for their roads.
Chapman said the house is owned by a New York couple, adding that longtime St. John resident Donna Stamford was the tenant, but she was off island.
He said arson is not suspected in the incident. He did not know the value of the house.
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