KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Siparia pen­sion­er Nank­ishore “Bob­by” Sir­ju went to bed un­der the stars on Sat­ur­day night, but there was lit­tle peace in it.

Each time the wind shift­ed, or clouds gath­ered above De Gannes Vil­lage, Sir­ju feared more rain would fall in­to the home he had lived in for years. Long af­ter mid­night, sleep nev­er came.

“You’re go­ing to bed, but you did not sleep. Your mind was far, re­al, re­al far,” Sir­ju said yes­ter­day, stand­ing out­side the dam­aged house where half the roof had been ripped away dur­ing Sat­ur­day’s high winds.

T&T spent the week­end un­der a high wind alert and Sir­ju, known through­out the com­mu­ni­ty as “Bob­by the Mic Man,” re­turned home on Sat­ur­day evening to find part of his roof torn off and thrown in­to an­oth­er sec­tion of the house.

With the gal­vanise gone, the hill­side above the home could be seen from in­side the liv­ing room and kitchen. Rain­wa­ter soaked the floor, dam­aged ap­pli­ances and wet elec­tron­ic equip­ment, in­clud­ing am­pli­fiers he used for work. Bro­ken beams and ex­posed elec­tri­cal wiring re­mained through­out the house yes­ter­day. A tar­pau­lin from the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit was on­ly enough to cov­er the fur­ni­ture in­side.

“It’s too dan­ger­ous to go up there,” Sir­ju said, look­ing to­wards the dam­aged roof.

Sir­ju said he had been at a cook­out around 1.30 pm when his son came look­ing for him, warn­ing that a gal­vanised sheet had start­ed lift­ing from the house. By the time he re­turned home around 5.30 pm, the dam­age had wors­ened.

“Oh Lord, it’s very hard to leave your house and come back in the con­di­tion I met it in. I did not know what to do.”

The shock over­whelmed him. Sir­ju be­gan wheez­ing and had to sit down while his chil­dren tried to se­cure what they could from in­side the house.

Yes­ter­day, as of­fi­cials from the Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Self Help (NC­SHL) as­sessed the dam­age, Sir­ju ad­mit­ted he re­mained fear­ful about what an­oth­er show­er could do. De­spite the con­di­tion of the house, he still spent Sat­ur­day night there.

“Well, you are on your bed, but you are see­ing the sky,” he said.

“I want­ed to be in the house to make sure every­thing was okay, that if rain comes, I am home so I could take care of cer­tain things.”

For now, Sir­ju said he did not know what his next move would be.

The house it­self al­ready showed signs of age be­fore the wind dam­age.

Yes­ter­day, pieces of wood and bro­ken gal­vanised sheets were vis­i­ble as rel­a­tives checked in on him.

NC­SHL chair­man Vish­nu Ram­lakhan said the agency was work­ing to as­sist Sir­ju through an emer­gency hous­ing grant, but ad­mit­ted the ex­tent of the dam­age posed chal­lenges.

“We are look­ing at the state of the build­ing, so he will have to tell us how he would like to move for­ward, be­cause to put a roof on this is kind of un­se­cured,” Ram­lakhan said.

Ram­lakhan said of­fi­cers were help­ing Sir­ju com­plete the nec­es­sary pa­per­work, and dis­cus­sions had al­ready start­ed with the Siparia con­stituen­cy of­fice and the Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion.

“He men­tioned that he has ma­te­r­i­al to start a foun­da­tion, so once you can get the foun­da­tion up and run­ning, we can as­sist with that.”

While emer­gency grants can pro­vide up to $25,000 in as­sis­tance, Ram­lakhan said fur­ther as­sess­ments still had to be com­plet­ed. Once ap­proved, the agency can is­sue pur­chase or­ders for ma­te­ri­als with­in about a week, al­though labour costs are not cov­ered.

But yes­ter­day, those con­cerns felt sec­ondary for Sir­ju, who is hope­ful he will help soon to re­store his home.