Elderly man in storm-battered home seeks help

An 81-year-old man has literally been left out in the cold since the passage of Hurricane Elsa last year.

Charles Weekes, of #2 Charnocks, Christ Church, has been living in a roofless house that could collapse at any moment.

When a Barbados TODAY team visited the area, the elderly man was resting in the only corner of the house that had covering left.

Weekes, a man of very few words, recalled how the storm-force winds sent his roof sailing and battered his wooden house.

“I stand up and see how the house crumble, the galvanise roof blow off during the hurricane,” he said.

Despite the house being on the brink of collapse, the former plantation worker is still living there, saying he has nowhere else to go.

“When the rain comes I have to go somewhere else in the house to get shelter….I got a daughter in Rock Hall but I really don’t go up there,” he said.

The soft-spoken man said that despite numerous visits from officials, no one had ever gotten back to him on how he could have his house repaired.

He said: “I don’t have anybody to help me but I would like some help…The [neighbour] she does look out and give me some things but nobody else.”

Meanwhile, Weekes’ neighbour, Willma Kirton, said she was very concerned about his living situation.

She told Barbados TODAY: “Since the storm, I saw the representative for the area, John King, when they came and visited the area but I don’t know what actually went on there with the situation, but it don’t seem like if he getting any help.”

The 72-year-old woman said she has been trying unsuccessfully for the past few months to get some assistance for Weekes.

“I called the housing people and they went and visit. Nothing has been done but the land that house is on is rental land but he has land in St Philip. He is waiting every day and he comes and he complains to me saying that they will do something for him when he dies,” she said.

“I does help him out. I does give him lunch on days but I don’t feel the condition of the house is very good. I don’t feel he could live in there because when the rain falls and he is getting wet it’s not a good condition and it hurts me but I can’t do anything.”

She is therefore pleading with the powers that be to come to the immediate assistance of Weekes whose situation she said is worsening by the day.

“The representative John King is not there but now you will have to wait and see what will happen after the elections,” Kirton said.

kobiebroomes@barbadostoday.bb