Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

While Do­ri­an Forbes and oth­er rel­a­tives saved his bedrid­den moth­er and step­fa­ther from a house fire in Pe­nal, the blaze de­stroyed two homes and all their be­long­ings, leav­ing 12 peo­ple home­less.

Forbes, 39, who lived in one of the hous­es with his four chil­dren, is now plead­ing for as­sis­tance, par­tic­u­lar­ly from his Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. Sev­en chil­dren, be­tween the ages of nine and 18, and five adults lived in the two hous­es.

The fire oc­curred on Tues­day at Ram­lal Street, just op­po­site Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s con­stituen­cy of­fice. Forbes, a con­struc­tion work­er, ex­plained that he and his chil­dren lived in the front house, while his moth­er, Mar­i­lyn, 76, and step­fa­ther, Cle­tus Williams, 82—both pen­sion­ers—lived in the back house with four grand­chil­dren.

He re­called that around 10.30 am, his nephew alert­ed him about smoke com­ing from his moth­er’s home. “When I reach, I see a chair and a mat­tress light­ing up ablaze. I tried my best to push it out­side, but the heat was too charg­ing too kind a way.”

Rel­a­tives ini­tial­ly tried to douse the blaze with wa­ter, but the fire was too in­tense.

“There was noth­ing we could do than just take out my moth­er and my step­fa­ther,” said Williams.

Be­cause his moth­er is heavy-set and can­not walk due to arthri­tis, he said, sev­er­al fam­i­ly mem­bers had to drag her out of the house. By the time they got his moth­er and step­fa­ther—who al­so can­not walk be­cause of a stroke—to safe­ty, it was too late to save any­thing from ei­ther home.

The fam­i­ly is now sleep­ing on three mat­tress­es pro­vid­ed by the Pe­nal-Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit [DMU], on the floor of Forbes’ sis­ter’s one-room house just a few feet away. They said the house is in a di­lap­i­dat­ed con­di­tion, with a leak­ing roof, un­se­cured win­dows, and no elec­tric­i­ty.

Sit­ting on a mat­tress on the damp floor, Mar­i­lyn re­called that she and her hus­band were at home with their 17-year-old grand­daugh­ter, who had stayed home from school be­cause it was her birth­day. Her grand­daugh­ter had just pre­pared a spe­cial toast sand­wich for her.

As she be­gan eat­ing it, Mar­i­lyn said, she heard a loud noise and saw fire in the kitchen.

“I start to bawl and call. My son and them had to pull me be­cause I can’t walk. They had to pull me out. He can’t walk too (her hus­band); he had a stroke. He was in his room. When I look, every­thing burn—the two hous­es.”

As tears flowed, she lament­ed, “It was re­al tough.”

She ex­pressed hope that the Prime Min­is­ter would as­sist them.

“I glad if she could give me a lit­tle help... Christ­mas com­ing,” she said.

Al­so ap­peal­ing to Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her gov­ern­ment for help find­ing suit­able ac­com­mo­da­tion, an­oth­er fam­i­ly mem­ber Cur­sil As­son said, “I be­lieve if they stay­ing there any longer that will cause health prob­lems with him (step­fa­ther).”

While Mar­i­lyn said gas had been es­cap­ing from the LPG cylin­der for a few days, the fam­i­ly was not sure what caused the blaze.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar could not be reached for a com­ment. How­ev­er, Shan­ti Boodram, coun­cil­lor for the area, said the DMU of­fi­cials vis­it­ed the fam­i­ly, and as­sess­ments to de­ter­mine their needs were on­go­ing.

Any­one will­ing to as­sist the fam­i­ly can con­tact 265-7288 or 317-9208. Of­fi­cers from the Pe­nal Fire Sta­tion and Po­lice Sta­tion re­spond­ed and are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.