RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Grand­moth­er Cindy Boo­choon clam­bered up a set of bro­ken wood­en planks, her hands grip­ping a twist­ed piece of rust­ing steel as she hoist­ed her­self in­to what was left of her ply­wood home at Gol­con­da.

The frame of the home stood lop­sided, its walls lean­ing and the roof stripped bare, the gal­va­nized sheets peeled back and curled by the force of the winds that ripped through her home on Thurs­day night.

Yet de­spite the wreck­age around her, 48-year-old Boo­choon smiled, as she cheer­ful­ly pre­pared “aloo” (pota­to) chokha for her hus­band, 60-year-old Kei­th Ram­rat­tan, her daugh­ter Melis­sa Ram­rat­tan, 32, and her 16-year-old grand­daugh­ter, Emi­ly Ramkissoon.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on the wood­en steps of her daugh­ter’s house, Boo­choon said the roof blew off around mid­day. For­tu­nate­ly, no one was up­stairs when it hap­pened.

Re­call­ing the in­ci­dent, Boo­choon said: “The house was lean­ing from be­fore. The breeze start­ed to blow hard and the house start to shake, and the gal­va­nize fly out. I was wash­ing clothes when it hap­pened,” she re­called.

When she went up­stairs, she saw the gal­va­nized roof­ing miss­ing and the mat­tress­es soaked.

Asked what help she need­ed, Boo­choon said,

“All I want is for the house to fix.” She said she want­ed some­one to help them cast a con­crete floor so they wouldn’t have to stay in the slush and mud.

“I am fright­ened to stay in that house. When the breeze blows, the house shakes, so I does run out the house,” she said.

She ex­plained that last year, out of fear, she had moved the kitchen out of the house.

“I brought the stove and wares down­stairs and I start­ed to cook out­side be­cause I does be fright­en to stay there,” she said.

Her grand­daugh­ter sat on a chair, look­ing wor­ried, as the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment team ar­rived. Two oth­er neigh­bours al­so suf­fered sim­i­lar dam­age. 

Chair­man of the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Gow­tam Ma­haraj, who vis­it­ed the Boo­choon fam­i­ly, said it was dan­ger­ous for them to con­tin­ue liv­ing in a lean­ing house. He said he would li­aise with the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment to have the fam­i­ly re­lo­cat­ed to a rental unit while grants are sourced to re­build their home. He added that the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit had pro­vid­ed mat­tress­es and food­stuff for af­fect­ed res­i­dents.

Ma­haraj not­ed that un­planned de­vel­op­ment has posed se­ri­ous chal­lenges, em­pha­sis­ing that Town and Coun­try Plan­ning and oth­er State agen­cies must work col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly to pro­mote prop­er build­ing prac­tices.

“We saw ap­prox­i­mate­ly five hous­es with a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion where be­cause the rain or the wind had blown off the roof or tak­en off a cou­ple of gal­va­nize and up­on in­ves­ti­ga­tion, we re­al­ized that these hous­es had struc­tur­al de­fi­cien­cies,” he said.

Ma­haraj said his team is com­pil­ing a list of all res­i­dents need­ing as­sis­tance, as well as farm­ers who may have suf­fered crop loss­es. Any­one want­i­ng to as­sist can call Boo­choon’s daugh­ter Kate Ram­rat­tan at 388-6897 or do­nate to RBC Cross Cross­ing, San Fer­nan­do ac­count num­ber 100097170075138.