KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Sev­en hours af­ter wit­ness­ing her home en­gulfed in flames, Ste Madeleine pen­sion­er Rashee­da Mo­hammed had yet to find rest, con­sumed by the un­cer­tain­ty of how to re­build.

Her trau­ma­tised neigh­bours, Ena Har­ry, 61, her hus­band, Ram­samooj Har­ry, 63, and their grand­son Nicholas Khan, 23, al­so en­dured a rest­less night. They sought refuge un­der a neigh­bour’s shed along First Street, Corinth Set­tle­ment, af­ter the fire spread to their home, re­duc­ing it to rub­ble. A house at the back sus­tained mi­nor dam­age, with a few bro­ken win­dows.

Mo­hammed, 67, said she was awak­ened by neigh­bours call­ing out to her yes­ter­day morn­ing. Re­al­is­ing her home was filled with smoke, she grabbed her keys and ran out­side. Liv­ing alone, she ex­plained that the fire orig­i­nat­ed in an un­oc­cu­pied bed­room at the back of the house, which con­tained on­ly a bed and bar­rels filled with fab­ric—no elec­tri­cal ap­pli­ances were plugged in. Mo­hammed ex­pressed dis­be­lief over the cause of the fire, stat­ing she had not lit any flames.

“I felt like I was go­ing crazy. I start­ed trem­bling, and they had to hold me down as I bawled. It is heart­break­ing to lose every­thing—my deep freeze, two fridges, wash­ing ma­chine, every sin­gle thing. Noth­ing has been saved. Wardrobe, chest of draw­ers, mi­crowave. I had just bought a new stove and re­cent­ly re­done the floor­ing,” she said.

Hav­ing lived in the house, which be­longs to her daugh­ter, for the past 40 years, Mo­hammed will spend the night at a neigh­bour’s home but is de­ter­mined to re­build.

Har­ry re­count­ed that she and her fam­i­ly were asleep around 2.30 am when a com­mo­tion out­side woke her. Look­ing through the win­dow, she saw rel­a­tives from across the road shout­ing for Mo­hammed to get out of the house, which was al­ready ablaze. Notic­ing flames at the back of Mo­hammed’s home, Har­ry quick­ly woke Ram­samooj, and to­geth­er they at­tempt­ed to wet their wall us­ing a gar­den hose. Rel­a­tives as­sist­ed in ef­forts to pre­vent the fire from spread­ing, but the in­ten­si­ty forced Har­ry to flee in­side, grab her purse, and es­cape. Just a day ear­li­er, she had vis­it­ed the hos­pi­tal for short­ness of breath due to a heart con­di­tion.

Even when the fire­fight­ers ar­rived, Har­ry said her house had sus­tained min­i­mal dam­age. Ini­tial­ly, on­ly an ex­ten­sion built by her son was burn­ing.

“I stood out­side while my sis­ter called the fire brigade. When they ar­rived, I be­lieved the front of my house could still have been saved. But, when they came down, they start­ed wet­ting Rashee­da’s house, and I stood up and looked at my whole house go down,” Har­ry re­called.

Aside from a sin­gle bag, Har­ry lament­ed that her fam­i­ly had lost every­thing ac­cu­mu­lat­ed over the past 30 years. Es­ti­mat­ing the loss­es at over $100,000, she not­ed that in 2023 alone, she had spent $50,000 ren­o­vat­ing the house and an ad­di­tion­al $30,000 on new fur­ni­ture in re­cent months. De­spite the dev­as­ta­tion, she re­mains hope­ful that the fam­i­ly can re­ceive sup­port to re­build.

Any­one will­ing to as­sist the fam­i­lies can con­tact Mo­hammed at 350-3191 or Har­ry at 332-5499.