Jensen La Vende

A 62-year-old woman is ward­ed at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al hos­pi­tal in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion af­ter a silk cot­ton tree fell on her home, in Pic­ton Road, Laven­tille, around 1 am yes­ter­day, de­mol­ish­ing half her home and leav­ing her neigh­bour and his sev­en chil­dren home­less.

Speak­ing with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day near the sham­bles that was once his six-bed­room, two-storey house, Samuel Cal­len­der said his neigh­bour Agatha James had lived at her house for the past 40 years with her hus­band Aldric and their daugh­ter Deb­o­rah. He said neigh­bours told him around 1 am the tree fell while James was asleep, and while his house took the brunt of the weight of the tree, it crashed through the roof of the cou­ple's bed­room, in­jur­ing James.

Cal­len­der, who said he stopped sleep­ing at his Pic­ton Road home about two weeks ago, af­ter he heard the tree crack­ing, said he had warned his neigh­bours that the tree was show­ing signs it was no longer stur­dy in 2010, af­ter one of its branch­es fell dur­ing the night.Since hear­ing the crack­ing re­cent­ly, he be­came more cau­tious, sleep­ing at his in-laws and re­turn­ing in day­light for what­ev­er he need­ed.

Half his home was de­stroyed in 2010, he said, but he re­built it with the aid of Self Help, through the Min­istry of the Peo­ple.Cal­len­der said he had made sev­er­al at­tempts to get the tree cut down but each time he was told that there was no equip­ment to do so. He lament­ed that there would be equip­ment now to re­move the tree. Es­ti­mat­ing the loss he suf­fered to be $100,000, he said he would now have to move in­to his moth­er-in-law's home un­til bet­ter could be done.