A St Michael MOTHER and her six children came close to losing their home as tropical storm Tomas, with its forceful winds and heavy rains, battered Barbados early yesterday morning.
Coreen Brathwaite of Tamarind Lane, Country Road, St Michael, said her roof just started “flopping up” as corners of the wooden house were being separated by the bellowing wind.
“It happened around 6 o’clock . . . .”
Brathwaite said she and her boyfriend had “to run behind the roof and use all the rope we had, and tie it down”.
“All here so start to move away. It had me so frightened!” Brathwaite said, pointing to sections of her house as she held her ten-month-old baby.
“My main concern now is to get somewhere that is not leaking because all the house leaking and we clothes and everything get wet,” the mum added.
Not far away, the place 49-year-old Marlene Small has called home all her life would not be spared.
The 1st Avenue, Garden Land, St Michael resident said it was minutes after nine when a nearby tamarind tree over 20 feet high came tumbling down, damaging furniture and injuring her boyfriend Carl Alleyne.
“I was going to put on water to make some tea when I heard . . . the crashing sounds and I saw [Carl] moving away just in time” Small recalled.
Her boyfriend said he was trying to secure a window in the living room when the tree fell.
“It only hurt my wrist and hip,” Alleyne said, “but it mashed up my phone and the television. That was a new television.
“The tree fell on the truck too . . . . and my bedroom got damaged also.
Alleyne said he now had to look for money to do repairs.
“I would love to get some help to get the place back to normal, because I can’t go back to sleep with the place so,” Small pleaded. (MM
