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Sunday, July 20, 2025

Penal councillor wants help for residents

by

Innis Francis
2164 days ago
20190816
Jeanette Ramnarinesingh of Bombay Avenue, Quinam Road, Penal puts her mattress out to dry after the roof of her home was blown off on Thursday. 

Jeanette Ramnarinesingh of Bombay Avenue, Quinam Road, Penal puts her mattress out to dry after the roof of her home was blown off on Thursday. 

Rishi Ragoonath

Clean-up op­er­a­tions con­tin­ued yes­ter­day in Pe­nal af­ter tor­ren­tial show­ers and high winds on Thurs­day caused de­struc­tion to sev­en homes in the area.

But Pe­nal coun­cil­lor Shan­ty Boodram of the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion is call­ing on the Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein to re­lease state funds to as­sist res­i­dents ur­gent­ly.

Yes­ter­day, three of the sev­en fam­i­lies were left mop­ping up and re­pair­ing dam­aged roofs and sun­ning drenched cloth­ing and mat­tress­es fol­low­ing the show­ers.

Ac­cord­ing to 60-year-old Jeanette Ram­nar­ins­ingh the show­ers came and rav­ished her fam­i­ly split lev­el wood­en struc­ture lo­cat­ed at Bom­bay Av­enue, Quinam Road. Ram­nar­ins­ingh said she was sit­ting in the down­stairs area of the home she oc­cu­pied with her three sons, one phys­i­cal­ly chal­lenged, a grand­son and daugh­ter-in-law.

She said that was when strong winds ripped off the roof and burst the tank, which then land­ed in the road.

Ram­nar­ins­ingh said she thought it was a tor­na­do that swept through the area and sought shel­ter un­der the house she rent­ed for the past 30 years. She said all her mat­tress­es and food sup­plies were wa­ter-soaked by the dev­as­ta­tion.

At Beck­les Street, Pe­nal Bob­by and Ria Seep­er­sad al­so suf­fered loss­es main­ly food sup­plies and ap­pli­ances. Ria said the fam­i­ly was out when the heavy show­ers trashed their home.

Ria said all of her sup­plies for her one-year-old ba­by were de­stroyed.

Ria’s sis­ter-in-law Nathasha Ram­nar­ine showed a wa­ter­logged down­stairs apart­ment and point­ed out the ma­jor in­fra­struc­tur­al dam­ages to the build­ing. She said she was afraid the build­ing would col­lapse if she spent an­oth­er night there.

An­oth­er res­i­dent al­so told a sim­i­lar tale. Trinelle Gra­cia said she got help to tem­porar­i­ly re­pair her home from vil­lagers. Gari­cia said she lived at the Smart Av­enue, La­choos Road, Pe­nal with three of her six chil­dren 11, 14, and 17 years-old. The 42-year-old woman said she sought help from Self Help many times be­fore but to no avail. She is now call­ing on the au­thor­i­ties to help her ful­ly re­pair the home and sup­ply school gears for her chil­dren.

Coun­cilor for Pe­nal Shan­ty Boodram vis­it­ed the ar­eas to see what as­sis­tance was need­ed but said the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion’s hands were tied.

Boodram said, “the Cor­po­ra­tion is staved for fund­ing,” and was lim­it­ed in what it can do.

She said: “Since last year, be­cause this hap­pened three times last year, but no com­pen­sa­tion was forth­com­ing. Sev­en homes in to­tal were af­fect­ed this time. The Cor­po­ra­tion don’t have, not even a mat­tress. We got some as­sis­tance for food­stuff, wa­ter and mat­tress.

“We want the gov­ern­ment to re­lease the mon­ey so we can help the peo­ple in their time of need. We are al­so call­ing on Self Help and the So­cial Wel­fare Ser­vices, or any cor­po­rate cit­i­zen for as­sis­tance for these fam­i­lies. Ba­bies and chil­dren are af­fect­ed and a lit­tle as­sis­tance can go a long way.”

Boodram said any­one will­ing to pledge sup­port or help can con­tact her at 741-0757.


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