Sascha Wil­son

Af­ter wait­ing years to ren­o­vate her home and in­stall elec­tric­i­ty, Ronel­sa Jew­el Pe­ters and her six chil­dren are now home­less.

Around 2:30 Tues­day morn­ing, a rag­ing fire de­stroyed three homes in Pleas­antville - one of them was hers.

For­tu­nate­ly, no one was hurt and none of her chil­dren were at home.

She, how­ev­er, be­lieves she cheat­ed death.

Her sis­ter and nephew lived in one of the oth­er hous­es while a rel­a­tive who re­sides abroad owned the oth­er house.

The hous­es were burnt to the ground.

Re­count­ing the ter­ri­fy­ing or­deal, she said she and her boyfriend Clem Greenidge, who was overnight­ing, went to bed around 1:05 am.

How­ev­er, around 2:30 am her boyfriend alert­ed her that the house was on fire. She said she ran out­side and saw fire on the out­side wall of the liv­ing room area. She ran back in but was on­ly able to grab her phone.

"Fire start­ed to fall. I had on a bon­net, the bon­net catch on fire and I had to run out in a panty and a bra." She ran across to a neigh­bour's house and he gave her a jer­sey.

Point­ing to a blouse and pants she was wear­ing, she said an­oth­er neigh­bour Caitleen Brown gave her those clothes.

Pe­ters, 36, who runs a sec­ondary school cafe­te­ria and cater­ing busi­ness said she lost all her busi­ness sup­plies, house­hold ar­ti­cles, doc­u­ments and oth­er valu­ables.

"I lost every­thing, pass­ports, ID card, the chil­dren's birth pa­pers, school things, school books, every­thing. I es­caped from death."

She used a con­tain­er she used to wet the crops in her gar­den

to try to put out the blaze.

She said her 19 and 17-year-old sons are pur­su­ing ter­tiary pro­grammes while her 10-year-old son and twin eight-year-old daugh­ters at­tend a pri­ma­ry school in Table­land. She said dur­ing the week they would stay with some­one in Table­land to at­tend school.

The house be­longed to her moth­er Judy who passed away in 2020. She said two years ago she fi­nal­ly got a grant from the Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Self-Help to do ren­o­va­tions and in De­cem­ber she got an elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply.

She was thank­ful to Brown, MP Bri­an Man­ning and Coun­cil­lors Robert Paris and Nigel Cout­ti­er for their as­sis­tance, but Pe­ters ad­mit­ted that she has no idea how to re­build their lives.

Any­one will­ing to as­sist can con­tact her at 318-2102.