Sec­re­tary of In­fra­struc­ture Kwe­si Des Vi­gnes is as­sur­ing Ma­son Hall res­i­dents, that the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) is con­sid­er­ing all al­ter­na­tives to re­build the riv­er wall that col­lapsed near their homes just over one week ago.

“We had our en­gi­neers ex­am­ine the struc­ture that was left and all fac­tors are be­ing con­sid­ered be­fore we move for­ward. It’s a very cost­ly ex­er­cise but we are pre­pared to do what we have to to rec­ti­fy the prob­lem,” Des Vi­gnes told To­ba­go To­day.

Area Rep­re­sen­ta­tive and Sec­re­tary of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment and Labour Marslyn Melville-Jack gave a sim­i­lar as­sur­ance when she vis­it­ed the af­fect­ed res­i­dents on Ju­ly 28, one day af­ter the wall fell.

Melville-Jack said then the “THA has done a full as­sess­ment of the sit­u­a­tion...and will take ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion.”

And Di­rec­tor of the To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (TEMA)Al­lan Stew­art said his agency is al­so as­sist­ing to mon­i­tor the wall.

Agatha Pierre-Mc­Clean, a res­i­dent who oc­cu­pies one of four hous­es once pro­tect­ed by the wall, said she feared her home will fall in­to the riv­er. One of the hous­es is un­der con­struc­tion.

“I need help. This is ur­gent. My house and the oth­er three be­long­ing to my fam­i­ly can fall in­to the riv­er any­time, as the rain and flow­ing wa­ter is eat­ing away the wall,” the Co­co Wat­ty Trace home­own­er said.

Re­count­ing the ex­pe­ri­ence, she de­scribed the sound of the nine-year-wall crash­ing down and its dis­cov­ery as “ter­ri­fy­ing.”

“I was in my bed­room around 11:30 am when I heard like there was a ter­ri­ble car crash ... when I saw the space where the wall was my heart fell. It was ter­ri­fy­ing.”

The woman, who is in her 60s, said she can­not spend her life sav­ings to build an­oth­er wall.

“Even if we all put to­geth­er and buy ma­te­ri­als, it will be too cost­ly as the ma­te­r­i­al is more ex­pen­sive now than nine years ago,” she said.