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Falling through the cracks: What happened to the victims of a six-alarm fire on Meridian Street in April
By adamg on Tue, 07/02/2024 - 10:57am
GBH takes an in-depth look at the aftermath of a six-alarm fire at 430 Meredian St. in East Boston that killed two - an adult right away and a 10-year-old girl afterwards.
Even before the fire, residents said, there were problems in what was supposed to be a single-family home:
Residents told GBH News that they’d complained to the owner, Jose Yanes, and his son about the building’s fire alarms needing batteries, and the single lightbulb sparking constantly in the bathroom.
Neighborhoods:
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Comments
Horrifying on so many levels
So many failures on so many levels. So much needs to be fixed. There needs to be effective handling of cases reported to Inspectional Services, plus bilingual staff.
Among other things, I'm stunned that the city doesn't have Spanish language resources (and, for that matter, Portuguese given the number of Brazilian and Cape Verdian residents) for fire safety.
The whole story is horrifying and heartbreaking.
ISD isn't always the culprit
https://www.boston.gov/departments/inspectional-services/building-forms-...
There were plenty of culprits to go around
.
The translation thing is mindboggling
Its so outrageous I'm not even sure if it is just complete incompetence or some more nefarious plan to protect landlords.
Public health manages to translate materials into Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian and Cape Verdean Creoles, Vietnamese, Chinese, and so on according to the target audience and what the local community based orgs tell us is important. I can't fucking believe the cavalier attitude of the fire department and public safety.
ONS needs to go
The mayors office of neighborhood services isn't a department to support neighborhood residents. It's actually an office to help businesses open in residential neighborhoods. They are ignoring neighborhood associations, and completely shut abutters out of meetings that have a direct impact on their respective quality of life. ONS also offers more support to residents of wealthier neighborhoods. ONS should all be fired.
They do translate all the
They do translate all the city hall press releases in many languages.
That makes the BFD response even worse
The city has the resources and systems to translate important documents. BFD isn't taking advantage of those resources.
Where does it say important
Where does it say important documents?