RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Blus­tery winds de­scribed by res­i­dents as a “mi­ni tor­na­do” spun through Ste Madeleine yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, rip­ping off five roofs and bring­ing down elec­tri­cal lines.

The pow­er was knocked out in sev­er­al parts of South Trinidad for a short pe­ri­od as light­ning and thun­der rum­bled and crack­led from the north­west.

Last night, 68-year-old po­lio sur­vivor Lennox Ramd­hanie and his neigh­bours Evans Jadoo­nanan, See­ta Sun­dar, Ricky De­onar­ine and Mey­wah Son­ny were busy try­ing to cov­er their roofs with tar­pau­lin.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Ramd­hanie said he was thank­ful that no one was hurt even though dan­ger­ous elec­tri­cal lines had been pulled to the ground.

Re­call­ing the dis­as­ter, Ramd­hanie said: “There were dark clouds, a lot of light­ning and thun­der, then I heard a strange rum­bling and when I looked I re­alised that about two-thirds of my roof was gone.

Hob­bling on crutch­es and un­able to get out of the house on his own, Ramd­hanie called for help and Jadoo­nanan came to his res­cue. Parts of Jadoo­nanan’s roof al­so blew off.

“I could not even think. I am a po­lio sur­vivor and I walk with the aid of crutch­es. It was dev­as­tat­ing to see the house roof­less and every­thing get­ting wet. The neigh­bour helped me to move the stuff and put it where it was dry,” Ramd­hanie ex­plained.

Asked where he would be sleep­ing last night, Ramd­hanie said he had a cou­ple of friends but said once his bed­room was dry, he would be sleep­ing in his own roof­less house.

“It was a ter­ri­ble thing to ex­pe­ri­ence. I was a bit scared know­ing that the roof is gone and noth­ing we could do to save the couch, com­put­ers, tele­vi­sion and bed,” he added.

Up to 7 pm, Ramd­hanie said they were await­ing T&TEC to dis­con­nect the hang­ing elec­tri­cal lines.

“Some wires are hang­ing and it is a dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion. I was hop­ing for a bet­ter re­sponse from T&TEC. We have re­ceived a tar­pau­lin and we have cov­ered what we could,” Ramd­hanie added.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed an of­fi­cial in T&TEC who promised to re­spond to dis­con­nect the lines.

Mean­while, Jadoo­nanan said his house suf­fered mi­nor roof dam­age.

“I don’t know if this was a mi­ni tor­na­do but it felt like that,” he added.

Mean­while, coun­cil­lor Shawn Prem­c­hand said this was the sec­ond time in as many weeks that res­i­dents of Corinth Set­tle­ment were hit hard by dis­as­ter.

“We still deal­ing with flood­ing and now we have a freak storm. They say this came in like a tor­na­do. It’s not too far from here we had ma­jor flood­ing,” Prem­c­hand said.

Prem­c­hand said he had for­ward­ed the re­ports to the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit for fur­ther as­sis­tance.

“I will al­so as­sist in ap­ply­ing for grants from the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment,” he added.

Mean­while, parts of San Fer­nan­do al­so ex­pe­ri­enced flood­ing.

At Scott Street, San Fer­nan­do, a fruit ven­dor was caught by sur­prise as the floods rose un­der his tent with­in a mat­ter of min­utes.

Res­i­dent Shamoon Ali said the drainage in the area was de­plorable.

“This is some­thing we are ac­cus­tomed with. They are al­ways telling us they com­ing to fix the drain but the drain is nev­er fixed. We had an iron bridge and they come and put a con­crete bridge so in­stead of the wa­ter go­ing straight down, it bounces and comes up Scott Street now,” he said.

He added, “The wa­ter will go down quick­ly but it leaves us in dis­tress. We had an iron bridge and a car bounc­ing it, so the wa­ter com­ing down from un­der Hill­side and it is not go­ing in the riv­er.”