Sascha Wilson
A misplaced key may have saved the life of a Mayaro market vendor.
Sixty-seven-year-old Caliste Modeste was forced to stay by a friend because he could not find his keys.
He woke up to shocking news yesterday morning that overnight showers had resulted in his home collapsing at Alexis Street.
"I came in yesterday evening (Wednesday) from selling in the market but I misplaced the keys (to my home), else I was doing to be in thee with the rubble, crawl up sometime. So God just make it happen that I was not there," he said.
While Modeste was renting the three-bedroom house, he had furniture and appliances which have been damaged.
Now, he has been left with no where to go.
"I looking to see if I could use the rubble to build up something," he said. However, he explained that the house was being being threatened for a few years by a retaining concrete wall that was leaning towards the house.
"They never pay no attention to it so when the rain fall the water from under the foundation of the wall and everything just move," said Modeste.
Given the situation, Modeste said was expecting that the house would have been damaged at some point. "But, I was not looking out for it to crush up so," he said.
He said a stove, a fan, two televisions, a double decker bed, another bed, a DVD player, and a deep freeze were destroyed.
The property, a three-bedroom house, is owned by 89-year-old Rita Francis and her husband Joseph who passed away earlier this year.
Sherry Ann Bayne said her aunt Francis had made several reports to the Mayaro Rio Claro Regional Corporation about a retaining wall that was caving and threatening the house. "It seem to me that the caving of the earth with the wall push it (house) down. It could be that but I am not a civil engineer," she added. She said the estimated cost of the house to be close to $1 million.
Corporation chairman Raymond Cozier and a crew from the Disaster Management Unit visited the site. Grateful that no one was injured, Cozier said, "It seems to be that due to the heavy showers that saturated the soil and caused some land movement and the whole house collapsed. We have contacted T&TEC to come and disconnect the wire and the DMU (disaster management unit) is doing their assessment now. We will have to contact Self Help to see how that could assist people to get some restoration to their life," said Cozier. Anyone willing to assist Modeste can contact 315-7508.