The first day of major clean-up efforts in Greenvale, La Horquetta was also the first time many residents returned to their homes in days.
Alicia Edwards was one of them who witnessed the extent of the damage for the very first time, as CEPEP workers pulled her damaged furniture from her home.
She had stayed at La Horquetta community centre since Friday.
“I couldn’t come back home so I went to work an pick up my son,” she told the T&T Guardian.
Edwards said she lost three televisions, two stoves, fridge, books or as she simply put,
“Everything.”
It was a response that most residents said when asked what they needed to be replaced.
Edwards sat in a beach chair in front of her house, with the furniture which once adorned her home behind her. The items were stacked on her lawn by CEPEP workers, who were now looking for water to help wash away the sludge inside.
“It kinda just overwhelming. You can’t really catch yourself. It feels like a shock back,” said Edwards.
While Edwards was only now coming to terms with the damage, Bridgette Prince returned to a scene of traumatic memories.
She, and her daughter, only escaped her home through her back window fire escape with the help of her neighbour.
“They wasn’t in this, to understand it,” said Prince, “Everything in here I pay for this and it hard for me to spend my money now to be going through this.”
She, however, gave great thanks to the maxi driver who drops her to work daily, who took her in over the weekend.
“He came out here the morning he say family we not leaving you. I come for you and your daughter. And we staying across there, and he eh watching to see what we eat or we drink. He treats we like family,” said Prince, who said the community needed help.
There was no shortage of help coming in, however, as there was significant traffic with numerous volunteers coming into the area.
Officials from T&TEC, the Housing Development Corporation, police, fire officers and cadets were present in the area, assisting in various ways.
Several officials from the Ministry of Social Development were also in the area doing assessments.
A crew from the Civilian Conservation Corps was also there helping a trainee clean out a home.
While there they also lent assistance to wheelchair-bound Jules Felix.
“They ask us to assist this disabled gentleman here because no one wasn’t there to help him,” said Darrell Jackson, who headed the 12 man CCC crew.
“ We wash down the walkway for him, we clean up one of his wheelchairs, we cleaning the next one and giving some assistance to him same time,” said Jackson.
Jules was thankful for the crew’s help but was curious if his car, a wagon could be saved.
His car, like many cars in the area, were filled with sludge.