The open­ing cer­e­mo­ny for the Josephine Shaw House in Port-of-Spain came to a dra­mat­ic end yes­ter­day, af­ter a tent col­lapsed while Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds was giv­ing the fea­ture ad­dress.

Hinds was stand­ing in for Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley for the re­open­ing of the fa­cil­i­ty, which will be used as a tran­si­tion home for young women.

Hinds took the podi­um short­ly be­fore noon, bring­ing greet­ings to his Cab­i­net col­leagues, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, Youth De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Fos­ter Cum­mings and Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy.

Heavy rains had start­ed about 15 min­utes be­fore and it soon be­came ob­vi­ous there was an is­sue with wa­ter pool­ing on top of the tents, which were set up in front of the build­ing.

Just min­utes af­ter Hinds start­ed speak­ing, me­dia per­son­nel and oth­er at­ten­dees be­gan mov­ing away from the tent, as it could be seen lean­ing to the right.

Sev­er­al men, who lat­er said they were em­ployed with the decor provider, tried scoop­ing some of the wa­ter from on top the tent with five-gal­lon buck­ets.

Hinds con­tin­ued his speech and it was on­ly when one of the tents came crash­ing down that he left the stage and the event was stopped.

As at­ten­dees sought shel­ter, the sound en­gi­neers and sev­er­al jour­nal­ists scram­bled to gath­er their equip­ment.

About an hour lat­er, as the event co­or­di­na­tors were pack­ing up, the sec­ond tent came crash­ing down as well.

Luck­i­ly no one was hurt in both in­ci­dents.

Af­ter the col­lapse, an eye­wit­ness said a poor­ly con­struct­ed gut­ter­ing on the build­ing caused wa­ter to pool on top of the tent, caus­ing it to even­tu­al­ly col­lapse.

“The gut­ter­ing on the build­ing is dam­aged and all of the wa­ter is falling on­to one side in­stead of falling in the gut­ter­ing and the tent col­lect­ed that wa­ter. Be­cause of the force of it, the tent col­lapsed,” he said.

He said the tent rental com­pa­ny could not be blamed, as the tent would not have col­lapsed if there was no ex­cess wa­ter pool­ing on top.

“It was Moth­er Na­ture,” he said.

Af­ter the first tent col­lapsed, Hinds and col­leagues toured the fa­cil­i­ty and cut the rib­bon to open it.

The Josephine Shaw House is a tran­si­tion­al home for young women. It was pre­vi­ous­ly run by the Sal­va­tion Army and the old build­ing was de­mol­ished and re­built by Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UDe­COTT).

Speak­ing ear­li­er in the cer­e­mo­ny, Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy, said the fa­cil­i­ty ful­filled one of the most crit­i­cal is­sues iden­ti­fied by the Jus­tice Ju­dith Jones re­port in­to abuse at chil­dren’s homes - the need for tran­si­tion­al hous­ing.

“To­day, we are for­tu­nate not on­ly to open a new build­ing but to cre­ate a new start for vul­ner­a­ble women, vul­ner­a­ble girls. To­day, we are not open­ing a build­ing but giv­ing young women the chance to start afresh in life af­ter they have been through dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances,” Web­ster-Roy said.

Youth De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Fos­ter Cum­mings said the fa­cil­i­ty will house 28 res­i­dents.

He said it will not on­ly pro­vide ac­com­mo­da­tion but will al­so “a holis­tic de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme which in­cor­po­rates psy­choso­cial sup­port, skills train­ing, ca­reer and per­son­al de­vel­op­ment and job place­ment for rein­te­gra­tion in­to so­ci­ety.”

“We will stay the course to en­cour­age you and to en­sure that you ac­quire the nec­es­sary skills to be­come co-cre­ators of our coun­try’s sus­tain­able fu­ture,” Cum­mings said in a mes­sage to the fa­cil­i­ty’s fu­ture res­i­dents.