Homeowners seek cover

Numerous persons across the central portions of the island found themselves braving hurricane-force winds, as the sudden collapse of their roofs left them vulnerable to the elements.

In the wee hours of Friday morning, Arleigh Yarde, 53 and his 27-year-old son, Akley, were shocked to discover that half of the galvanized roof on their Jackson, St Michael home had gone flying into the distance, while the other half had caved in.

“When I turned around, I heard this big gush of wind coming ‘wosh wosh’ and then I heard the roof start to crack. When I went near to the door, I started to see the wind lift up the whole roof,” Yarde told Barbados TODAY.

“The roof started to shake and then another gush of wind started to come and lift it in the air throwing it a couple metres away from my house. I had to get out of the house when I saw all of that, so when I came and looked at it from another side, I realized that the entire roof just blew off and the wind in the house was just doing as it liked.

“So I said ‘well this is no place for me to stay’ and I just came outside. Then the residents came outside and assisted me in getting some of the galvanize that blew all about in the wind and thing, so this is the result now of a very surprising and serious storm,” the homeowner further recounted.

Hours after the ordeal, the debris, including portions of the roof, was littered throughout the two-bedroom house and the floor was waterlogged.

Yarde added that in his 20 years living in Jackson, he had never experienced anything quite like Hurricane Elsa. He said he was still recovering from the shock of the notorious ‘freak storm’ that unfolded in mid-June.

Over the next few days, the father and son will be living with relatives, but Arleigh acknowledged that the road ahead will be both long and expensive.

“Hopefully the Prime Minister would hear my voice and she would come and take a look, because she is very familiar with my district. I would like her help and I will pray for the best,” he added.

At Bridgefield, St Thomas, Keisha Williams who lives with her 30-year-old brother and 17-year old daughter, revealed that around 8 a.m., in the midst of “nuff” wind, they heard a crashing noise in the house.

“The roof came off. That is basically it. Just after 8 when it started to kick up, my roof came off. My daughter went next door by my cousins and I just stood in here and my friends came and tried to help,” Williams recalled.

Meanwhile, Michelle Sealy, who lives at Sturges in the same parish, revealed that from as early as 4 a.m. the roof of her home blew off, forcing her 72-year-old mother and three other relatives to huddle in the lone room still safe from the elements.

She said Hurricane Elsa, and the ‘freak’ storm in June, were the two most significant weather events she had every experienced in her 40 years in the location.

Officials from the St Thomas District Emergency Organisation (DEO) were working tirelessly throughout the evening and into the night delivering tarpaulins to households with damaged or missing roofs.

Member of Parliament, Cynthia Forde told Barbados TODAY that she had received 25 reports of severely damaged houses, including four houses without roofs. In addition, numerous roads were impassible.

“I’ve got a team of young men from the villages, some from Jackson and some from the other communities, who have come together with me this evening and we have cleared almost four to five miles of road. The DEO from St Thomas is extremely dynamic and they too are at the other end of St Thomas,” Forde revealed.

“I must tell you that there is a private contractor, Mr. Christie who is in Christie’s Village, he and his team are there working as well to make sure that at least the roads are cleared and the services can come in,” she added.
(kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb)