RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA
rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Hours af­ter high winds ripped off six roofs at Wind­sor Park, Cal­i­for­nia, vil­lagers pooled mon­ey to­geth­er and bought tar­pau­lins as they worked to re­store im­me­di­ate shel­ter to the vic­tims.

Up to mid­day, vil­lagers said they had yet to see of­fi­cials of the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit from the Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion.

Among those af­fect­ed was wid­ow Shal­isha Boodoo.

"My hus­band Banoo Ra­goo­bar died 16 years ago, and my son Va­roon has not been work­ing since the pan­dem­ic, so we have no mon­ey to fix back this roof," Boodoo said.

While her neigh­bours ham­mered away to se­cure fall­en sheets of gal­va­nize as well as the tarpulin, Boodoo said, "Right now I am beg­ging for some help to get ma­te­r­i­al."

De­scrib­ing the or­deal, Boodoo told Guardian Me­dia:

"When the breeze start to blow I get fright­ened. I run out the house as the gal­va­nize start to blow away."

Crum­bled sheets of gal­va­nize were scat­tered on the road­side and Boodoo said her neigh­bour In­dar Paras­ram, who owns a min­i­mart near­by, had promised some as­sis­tance.

Close by, Camil­la Hugo was al­so in dis­tress.

Her en­tire roof had blown away and land­ed in her neigh­bour's yard.

"It was a scary ex­pe­ri­ence. I nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced any­thing like this," Hugo said.

She said she was for­tu­nate that there was lit­tle rain, so she and her neigh­bours were able to se­cure valu­ables.

"I packed a few things and stayed by my neigh­bour for the rest of the night," Hugo added.

Near the Phoenix Park Ear­ly Child­hood Cen­tre, an­oth­er house was roof­less, but the own­er had sev­er­al work­ers restor­ing the roof.

Guardian Me­dia will bring you more as this sto­ry un­folds.