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Monday, July 14, 2025

Ten feet of floodwaters destroy two-storey house in Palmiste

by

Rishard Khan
713 days ago
20230801

Res­i­dents of Palmiste Bend, San Fer­nan­do, were busy yes­ter­day try­ing to sal­vage what they could af­ter Sat­ur­day’s flood­wa­ters reached over ten feet in some parts of the com­mu­ni­ty.

While the tal­ly of loss­es con­tin­ued to rise for each of them, one fam­i­ly said with cer­tain­ty yes­ter­day that they had lost every­thing.

Taxi dri­ver Naveed Mo­hammed, 35, and his wife, sales clerk Saman­tha Machikan, 28, live at the end of Palmiste Bend in a two-storey home con­struct­ed with wood­en beams and sealed with ply­board. The home is not much to stare at com­pared to the oth­ers sur­round­ing it how­ev­er, the sec­ond storey where they live is filled with every­thing they own and need to raise their two daugh­ters, nine and eight months old re­spec­tive­ly.

How­ev­er, on Sat­ur­day the rapid­ly ris­ing wa­ters reached al­most three feet in­side their up­stairs dwelling space as the Cipero Riv­er, which is just me­tres away, burst its banks.

“I bought every sin­gle thing al­ready. Books, uni­form, every sin­gle thing. The last thing I bought was the bag and the lunch kit this Fri­day and every sin­gle thing went (with the flood),” Machikan told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, this was on­ly their most re­cent in­vest­ment that went down the drain. Out­side their home, de­stroyed cup­boards, fur­ni­ture, ap­pli­ances and oth­er un­recog­nis­able fruits of their labour lay in a wet, musky pile wait­ing for a truck from lo­cal gov­ern­ment au­thor­i­ties to col­lect and dis­card.

Naveed, who has lived in the area his en­tire life, said they had nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced some­thing of this mag­ni­tude be­fore.

Apart from los­ing the items col­lect­ed over the years, they now fear the home has been struc­tural­ly com­pro­mised. In­side, the half-inch con­struc­tion ply­board floors sag be­tween joists. Sim­ply step­ping on them felt like walk­ing on sponges as they com­pressed, re­leas­ing the wa­ter still trapped in­side. It is why Machikan said her chil­dren are be­ing kept away from their home.

“The board bend­ing and every­thing and then it’s a ba­by ... she now sit­ting up to creep,” she said.

Any­one will­ing to as­sist the fam­i­ly can con­tact Naveed at 276-6547.


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