Af­ter three nights of fear and trau­ma sleep­ing in­side a col­laps­ing ply­wood home, 45-year-old grand­moth­er Ge­nieve Pierre, her eight-year-old daugh­ter, and nine-year-old grand­son have fi­nal­ly been evac­u­at­ed and giv­en shel­ter at the Oropouche Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre.

The de­ci­sion came hours af­ter Guardian Me­dia found Pierre liv­ing in­jured in the ru­ins of her Pal­too Trace, South Oropouche home. 

The house, bought with the last of her sav­ings, col­lapsed last Mon­day. Tilt­ed dan­ger­ous­ly, the back walls had caved in, and rot­ted lamp post pil­lars had snapped, threat­en­ing to bring the rest of the struc­ture down at any mo­ment.

Siparia May­or Dood­nath Mayrhoo spear­head­ed the evac­u­a­tion and called on the pub­lic to help Pierre with build­ing ma­te­ri­als.

In an in­ter­view, Pierre ex­plained that around 8 am on Mon­day, she was in the bed­room of the ply­wood and gal­vanised house, comb­ing her daugh­ter’s hair when she heard a ter­ri­fy­ing rum­ble. Sud­den­ly, the walls came down, the back of the roof crum­bled and the lamp post pil­lars broke off, twist­ing the house pre­car­i­ous­ly to one side.

Shield­ing her daugh­ter with her body as the house fell apart around them, Pierre suf­fered a blow to her legs and bruised hips from the rot­ted boards. But de­spite the pain, she nev­er sought med­ical help.

“If I go to the hos­pi­tal, who go­ing to take care of these chil­dren?” she asked.

The fam­i­ly had been sleep­ing on cush­ions in what was left of the shell of the home, re­ly­ing on kind neigh­bours to bring food. With no near­by rel­a­tives—her fam­i­ly is in Grena­da—Pierre had no one to turn to.

“I saved $25,000 to buy this house be­cause I couldn’t man­age rent any­more,” she said. “Now it is gone.”

Pierre said her life fell apart long be­fore the house did. Two years ago, her hus­band Gre­go­ry died. With no sta­ble in­come and rent too high to man­age, she used her sav­ings—$25,000—to buy the ply­wood house at South Oropouche.

Pierre said al­though mem­bers of the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit came to the house on Mon­day, all she got was a tar­pau­lin.

“Every­thing mash up in­side. I can­not cook but the neigh­bours have been bring­ing food,” she said.

Pierre said she has been work­ing with the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP) and clean­ing peo­ple’s homes for a liv­ing.

“I do my best. Some­times the church might give us gro­ceries and we man­age day by day.”

She said her nine-year-old grand­son has been liv­ing with her since he was one month old. Since her hus­band died her son, Isa­iah has been suf­fer­ing from de­pres­sion and oth­er sus­pect­ed men­tal health is­sues.

She said her el­dest daugh­ter walked away and she did not know her where­abouts.

“I have nowhere to stay. No­body to stay by and no­body to watch the chil­dren for me to get med­ical help.”

Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment Van­dana Mo­hit dis­patched a team to in­ves­ti­gate and as­sist Pierre.

Any­one want­i­ng to as­sist Pierre can call her at 278-1206 or Mayrhoo at 751-3565.