Almost three years after the deadliest day in the history of the Houston Fire Department, the families of four firefighters who battled a catastrophic hotel blaze have filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit over the department’s troubled digital radio system.
As flames engulfed the Southwest Inn hotel on a hot day in May 2013, firefighters battling the five-alarm blaze also had to fight problems with their new radios. The newly installed digital radios repeatedly knocked firefighters off the air, forcing them to use hand signals instead of the city’s new $140-million communications system.
Four firefighters – Robert Bebee, Robert Garner, Matthew Renaud and Anne Sullivan – died after a ceiling collapsed on top of them as they tried to extinguish the blaze. As their colleagues frantically tried to rescue them, high winds whipped flames across the hotel property and spread smoke across the busy Southwest Freeway.
A lawsuit filed on behalf of the families of three of the firefighters who died that day – as well as a fourth firefighter who was injured – names Motorola and five other business entities involved with the radio system.