Strong winds swept through Clax­ton Bay on Fri­day night, knock­ing over Ken­ny Koat’s two-bed­room wood­en house.

Now, the 25-year-old struc­ture lies in splin­ters while Koat spends his nights on a couch un­der a rel­a­tive’s house, star­ing at what re­mains of his home.

“Lucky thing I wasn’t in­side,” he told Guardian Me­dia. “I was out­side when my niece told me it fell down.”

The 61-year-old fish­er­man-turned-labour­er has lived on the spot for more than three decades. He said he built the home with the help of friends, but had been un­able to main­tain it in re­cent years be­cause of arthri­tis and surgery for kid­ney stones.

“I can’t work hard again. I stopped work­ing a cou­ple of months now,” he ex­plained. “Some­times I find a lit­tle two-day work, some­times peo­ple help me.”

He said on Fri­day night, every­thing was lost. “All the bed wet up and broke up, the whole roof fell down on it. I lost the bed, fur­ni­ture, every­thing,” he added.

Since the col­lapse, friends and rel­a­tives have been help­ing re­move valu­ables from the wreck­age, but most of the wood and gal­va­nized sheets are rot­ted and can­not be reused.

“I slept on that couch last night. It was a hard night,” he ad­mit­ted. “I wor­ry about how I will be stay­ing. All night I wake up.”

No one from dis­as­ter man­age­ment or gov­ern­ment agen­cies has yet vis­it­ed the site, and Koat is ap­peal­ing for help to re­build.

“If I can get some ma­te­r­i­al to build over, I’ll start,” he said. “I have noth­ing to start it back with.”

For now, he said, his on­ly op­tion is to spend an­oth­er night un­der the house, wait­ing for as­sis­tance.

Mean­while, his niece, Vic­to­ria Har­ry, said she was at home when the winds start­ed to blow. She said when the house col­lapsed, they im­me­di­ate­ly rushed to help and were re­lieved Koat was not in­side. She said that if ma­te­ri­als can be do­nat­ed, friends and vil­lagers would re­build the house.

Vice Chair­man of the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Hen­ry Awong, said he will co­or­di­nate with the fam­i­ly to re­move the de­bris from the site. Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment Van­dana Mo­hit said the CT­TRC Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit will as­sess the case and will let the Min­istry of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices know when they up­load the as­sess­ment. She said the Na­tion­al So­cial De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme will en­gage the fam­i­ly and will vis­it to­day, Mon­day, to pro­vide food sup­port. Any­one want­i­ng to as­sist Koat can call Har­ry at 757-6480 or Eliz­a­beth Samuel at 471-0914.