Living on prayers.
That’s how the Gamble family of Church Village, St Joseph, are spending their days and nights because their home of more than 40 years is cracking to pieces.
The brick house is among six homes located opposite the condemned St Joseph Parish Church, which sustained structural damage that residents have linked to an undetected ruptured underground main.
Henry Gamble explained that months after the earth tremor which affected Barbados six years ago residents realized that the road in front of their homes was cracking and there was always water on the surface.
He said the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) visited the area several times but it took them almost two years to finally detect the troublesome main, which Gamble said was deep underground. “Up to this day it is leaking,” he said.
He recalled that when the houses started to show hairline cracks, officials from the Soil Conservation Unit visited the area, confirmed that it was a water problem and, with the use of a payloader, dug two holes almost 12 feet deep in the gully behind his house looking for the source of the leak. But they found no water.
“Every day we would hear tiles popping and then we noticed that the cracks were getting wider,” Gamble explained, adding that at night they could also hear the water running.
The residents signed a petition and sent that along with letters to the Water Authority and the Ministry of Agriculture last year asking that the leak be investigated urgently.
He said the Authority finally detected the leak almost four years later and they determined that it had caused the earth to pull away.
Government engineers were sent to examine his house which started to show huge vertical cracks in the walls, in the floor where tiles began to lift and even on the concrete pavement.
The family also went to their insurance company which also sent out engineers to examine the property.
The first report suggested that the house could be repaired but a year later the second report revealed that it was irreparable.
But what has the family peeved is that after faithfully paying their insurance for so many years the company gave the bad news that their home had depreciated and that they would only be able to secure less than half of what the house was insured for – $120 000 – which in their estimation could not replace their home.
Gamble said he was now challenging the insurance company’s offer since it was his belief that if the house was sold at market value without the structural damage they would have been able to get the full insured price.
He said the insurance company had also advised the family to go after the Water Authority.
“We believe the BWA would be responsible for the damages to our home because it was the burst main that led to the cracks in the foundation all around the house,” added Gamble, whose wife and three sons also live there.
He is hoping that Government steps in and assists his family before it is too late.
“We don’t have any money to go and hire a lawyer,”?he said. “We believe that Government should do the right thing and accept responsibility.”
Communications specialist at the BWA, Joy-Ann Haigh, said their engineers were investigating the matter.
