Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

A Williamsville fam­i­ly of ten, in­clud­ing three chil­dren, is fac­ing a bleak Christ­mas af­ter their home was gut­ted by fire yes­ter­day morn­ing.

While thank­ful that no one was in­jured, 35-year-old Rasheana Mo­hammed-Ali said they had no idea where they would be spend­ing the night or how they were go­ing to re­build their home at Pooran Street.

The fire broke out around 10 am on the up­per floor of the house, which com­prised two bed­rooms. How­ev­er, at the time, no one was up­stairs.

An emo­tion­al Mo­hammed-Ali re­called that she was do­ing school­work with her son, while her oth­er rel­a­tives were cook­ing and clean­ing on the ground floor. She said they heard a “loud boom”, and her moth­er saw the cur­tain in one of the up­stairs bed­rooms on fire.

“I take the hose to see if we could out it be­cause I think­ing the cur­tain just light up,” she said.

How­ev­er, she said her cousin saw the smoke from the road and went up­stairs to in­ves­ti­gate.

“When he see the whole house blaz­ing, he said the whole house on fire and we run out. Every­body run out. The chil­dren ages five, six and nine, run out, my moth­er, my sis­ter.”

She said the am­bu­lance had to take her 53-year-old moth­er to the hos­pi­tal be­cause the stress of the in­ci­dent made her blood pres­sure rise.

“This re­al sad be­cause we lost every­thing. We lost our whole, that come like we life ... look we have no home, we don’t know where we get a place to stay. We lose every every­thing,” said Mo­hammed-Ali.

Ex­plain­ing that her grand­par­ents built the house, she said her fa­ther was look­ing for­ward to re­tir­ing and spend­ing more time at home when he turned 60 in De­cem­ber.

“Now he loss every­thing,” she lament­ed.“I have no idea what we are go­ing to do. I am lost.”

Mo­hammed-Ali, who suf­fers from Stage 4 Sar­coido­sis—a rare con­di­tion where tiny lumps (nod­ules) de­vel­op at var­i­ous sites with­in the body due to in­flam­ma­tion—said they need­ed help to re­pair or re­build their home be­cause they could not af­ford to do it on their own.

“If any­body will­ing to as­sist us, we are re­al­ly grate­ful,” she said.

Ben Lomond/Hard­bar­gain/Williamsville Coun­cil­lor Vin­cent Raghoo said the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion’s Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit vis­it­ed the fam­i­ly and con­duct­ed an as­sess­ment. He as­sured that they would en­sure all gov­ern­ment so­cial ser­vices were made avail­able to the fam­i­ly as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.

He al­so ap­pealed to cor­po­rate T&T to help the fam­i­ly, not­ing that two busi­ness­es have al­ready pledged their sup­port. Al­so promis­ing as­sis­tance, Princes Town MP Aiy­na Ali said she would be li­ais­ing with the Min­is­ters of Hous­ing and So­cial De­vel­op­ment to get help for the fam­i­ly.

Com­mend­ing the Mon Re­pos Fire Sta­tion, she ac­knowl­edged that the of­fi­cers have been cov­er­ing a vast area since the Princes Town Fire Sta­tion closed down last year. How­ev­er, she said no fi­nal de­ci­sion has been made re­gard­ing the re­lo­ca­tion or re­build­ing of that sta­tion. Not­ing that the bud­get was re­cent­ly passed, she said up­dates will be pro­vid­ed with­in this fis­cal year, and the pub­lic will be kept in­formed.

The fam­i­ly can be con­tact­ed at 355-4449.