According to a report by Guadalajara daily Milenio, personnel at the city’s Fire Department acknowledge that fire hydrants in the metropolitan area installed on public buildings are nothing more than “adornments.”
During the recent fire that gutted Guadalajara’s Corona Market, a conveyor belt of trucks known as pipas ferried water to firefighters batting the blaze for more than four hours.
Fire chiefs say a functioning system of hydrants would have improved firefighters’ chance of saving the market, located a few blocks from the city’s cathedral in the heart of the historic downtown core.
Interviewed by Milenio, Fire Department Commander Jose de Jesus Martinez Cortes said he was unaware of how many fire hydrants there were in Guadalajara or, if they did exist, their exact location.
Most U.S. cities have fire hydrants connected to the public water supply for use in emergencies.
Jalisco Civil Protection and Fire Department Director Trinidad Lopez Rivas said Guadalajara was “operating in the past.” Agreements need to made with SIAPA, the metro area’s water utility, to tap into the water supply in times of emergency. “We need to find a solution that’s not too expensive.”
Inmates get food poisonings
Some 450 inmates at the Puente Grande penitentiary outside Guadalajara became sick after eating contaminated ceviche de soya last weekend. None of the affected prisoners required hospital treatment. The symptoms were acute diarrhea and dehydration, prison officials said. An investigation into the cause of the food poisoning outbreak is in progress.
Traffic cops to get electronic readers
Traffic cops will soon get electronic readers that will allow them to scan the licenses and plates of drivers to obtain their personal information.
The new equipment will reduce the number of errors made by officers when filling out folios (infractions), says Luis Alejandro Cerda, administrative director of the Jalisco Traffic Department (Semov).
In the project’s first stage, 500 readers will be purchased at a cost of three million pesos.
All new licenses issued by Semov contain a chip that will allow the driver’s data to be accessed by the readers.
Eight new speed cameras planned
Jalisco’s Traffic Department has eight new permanent radar cameras planned for major thoroughfares in the metro zone. Speed cameras took in 155 million pesos last year, with an average of 53,500 photo infractions sent out each month. New cameras will be placed on Avenidas Lazaro Cardenas, Lopez Mateos, Vallarta and Aviacion and three mobile cameras will be used in other parts of the city, as well as outlying communities. Two more cameras are to be mounted on patrol cars. Authorities expect the program to increase to some 66,000 citations per month and eventually pull in some 200 million pesos for the state by the end of 2014.
New subway line begins construction in 12 days
It will take 28 months to finish the first above-ground section of line three of the city’s subway system (Tren Ligero), construction of which will begin June 11. Around 750 million pesos will be spent on the project in 2014 alone. Stage one (Zapopan to downtown Guadalajara) will be built by a consortium formed by the Spanish firm Scyr, the Portuguese builder Mota Engil, Jalisco’s Trena and Grupo Promotor de Dessarrollo e Infrastructura from Estado de Mexico. Work on the second stage of the line, running under the city center, will begin in 2016. The line will carry on to Rio Nilo, Tlaquepauqe and the bus station in Tonala.