RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Janet Lee and her son Al­lis­ter fled their home on Tues­day night when a sprawl­ing tree col­lapsed on top of their roof, break­ing off con­crete columns and caus­ing their floor to sink.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view, Lee said she was at home when she heard the loud creak­ing sound fol­lowed by a crash. The tree which grew on the bank of a riv­er al­so tum­bled on a shed be­long­ing to Lee’s neigh­bour Er­rol Rag­bir.

How­ev­er, while Rag­bir’s house was still hab­it­able, Lee said she had no choice but to aban­don hers and go to a rel­a­tive’s home at Frances Street, Ste Madeleine. Lee said it was not the first time that she lost a home.

Wip­ing away tears, Lee said, even though she begged Gov­ern­ment to of­fer her hous­ing in the past, her cries fell on deaf ears.

She said when her first home was dam­aged by a fall­en tree she ap­plied to get a house from the then Na­tion­al Hous­ing Au­thor­i­ty but her ap­pli­ca­tion was nev­er ap­proved and she lat­er moved to George Street, Ste Madeleine.

“I have been go­ing to HDC over and over and they say­ing my name on file. When it’s elec­tions they come and sweet talk you. I used to go with them when my chil­dren were small and cam­paign from Ste Madeleine to Williamsville and peo­ple come and get a house be­fore me. Now, look what hap­pened to me. I have noth­ing,” Lee cried.

She called on Hous­ing Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell to help her with hous­ing.

Mean­while, Rag­bir said he has been com­plain­ing about the ero­sion and the dan­ger of the tree col­laps­ing for over 10 years.

“I went to the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion and they nev­er did any­thing,” Rag­bir said.

He said when­ev­er it rains, about six feet of wa­ter ris­es up be­hind their homes.

Mean­while, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein vis­it­ed the res­i­dents yes­ter­day and of­fered as­sis­tance.

Ho­sein alert­ed the of­fi­cials of the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and ad­vised them to as­sist in cut­ting and clear­ing the fall­en tree which re­mained on top of the house.

“I have spo­ken to the chief co­or­di­na­tor and they will send a team to cut the tree and re­move the tree so she will get re­lief to­day,” Ho­sein said.

With re­gard to the HDC ap­pli­ca­tion, Ho­sein ad­vised that Lee fol­low-up up with her ap­pli­ca­tion.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Hous­ing Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell said on hear­ing the tragedy a re­sponse team from the of­fice of the San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy of­fice was dis­patched to see the dam­age first hand.

“Mrs Lee has vis­it­ed our of­fice in the past and has an ap­pli­ca­tion that is in process be­fore the HDC. Hav­ing re­gard to this new de­vel­op­ment, her ap­pli­ca­tion will now be re­ferred to the so­cial and com­mu­ni­ty re­la­tions unit at the HDC for ur­gent con­sid­er­a­tion. The re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion has been alert­ed and I will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor to en­sure that Mrs Lee gets re­lief,” Mitchell said.