Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

The New Year was meant to be a fresh start—a cel­e­bra­tion of fam­i­ly and hope.

But for Whit­ney An­drews and her loved ones of Ger­ald Street, New Vil­lage, Point Fortin it be­gan in ter­ror.

On Fri­day she re­lat­ed to Guardian Me­dia how the tragedy oc­curred.

Min­utes af­ter she fin­ished a spe­cial meal for her hus­band, two chil­dren, and two young grand­chil­dren—on what was al­so her fourth wed­ding an­niver­sary—An­drews’ home be­gan to col­lapse.

“While I was cook­ing, I was hear­ing the breeze. Every time the breeze blow, I hear a crack noise,” she re­called. “I wake up my hus­band. He went and in­ves­ti­gate. He saw one block of the block it keep com­ing down, then less than a minute, we heard a rum­bling. I had to grab the chil­dren—the whole house was flat on the ground.”

In the chaos, An­drews said she was pan­ick­ing be­cause she didn’t know where her 12-year-old daugh­ter was.

“We just hear the ‘badang!’, and you just see the house sink­ing. I was bawl­ing. When the house stopped, I re­alised she was in the next room,” she said.

The house had been built on five-foot-tall beams, and now it is on the ground—a stark re­minder of how close tragedy came.

An­drews said she shud­ders to think what could have hap­pened to her three and four-year-old grand­chil­dren, who sec­onds be­fore were play­ing by the sec­tion that crum­bled.

“The rub­ble would have fall­en on them for sure,” she said.

An­drews said there were pre­vi­ous signs that her home was un­sta­ble, but due to fi­nan­cial hard­ships, there was lit­tle they could do to se­cure the struc­ture.

She is among hun­dreds of for­mer Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme work­ers who are now with­out an in­come af­ter the Gov­ern­ment stopped the pro­gramme.

While her hus­band does odd jobs in the neigh­bour­hood, An­drews said he does not get reg­u­lar work.

“The house not even wired—that is how tough it is fi­nan­cial­ly,” she said, lament­ing, “Some­times I babysit the chil­dren, but it’s so hard now. Even if you look­ing for work, it don’t re­al­ly have.”

De­spite the dan­ger, the fam­i­ly re­mains in what’s left of the house, but An­drews said she is fear­ful that it could col­lapse around them.

“(I spent New Years Day) Cry­ing… my pres­sure was high. I didn’t even sleep last night. It was hard,” An­drews ad­mit­ted. “Any help we get, we would ap­pre­ci­ate.”

She said of­fi­cials from the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit of the Point Fortin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion, the lo­cal coun­cil­lor, and a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from the MP’s of­fice have promised as­sis­tance, but she has no clue how they are go­ing to pick up the pieces.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic who wish to help can con­tact 715-9735.