More horror stories of Richard from Hattieville Village

Hurricane Richard has long gone, and as we have reported, it left a trail of massive devastation and human suffering. In Hattieville, the recovery will take some time after the heavy rains and hurricane force winds whipped the community ripping roofs from houses and knocking  down trees and electricity lines. On Monday, we found residents overwhelmed at the damage to property caused by the category one hurricane.

Jose Sanchez

jose sanchez

“We’re here at the entrance of Hattieville, mile fifteen on the western highway. I’m here with Michael Figueroa, one of the persons affected by the hurricane. Michael can you please tell me what happened to your home?”

Michael Figueroa

“Well as you could see, all the zinc tear off, big trees tear down, we got part off tear off, we experience a lot of water damage inside on a whole. Mien it is just tremendous.”

Jose Sanchez

“How did you manage to get through the hurricane with no roof?”

michael figueroa

Michael Figueroa

“I weather it out from outside. I neva stay inside. We stayed on the side, on the back-page because the breeze the blow crossway this way. The gusty winds and thing mi very dangerous because we get like seventy-five, eighty-five miles per hour winds.”

Jose Sanchez

“Are you able to find the funds to fix the roof and everything in the house that you have loss?”

Michael Figueroa

“No boss. We can’t meet deh debts and deh charges right now. It’s very difficult right now. We can’t withstand that right now. We need help. We need tremendous help because ih very hard fi we as poor people.”

Jose Sanchez

“As you can see there is no roof, you can see the trees; you can see the nice blue sky. Inside the house is totally turned upside down. Mattress leaned up against the wall, louvers missing. There is no way anyone can sleep in here. It’s drenched its wet, debris, everything is gone and throughout the other rooms it is the same thing as well. Trees, grass, everything has been damaged—all his books. A lot of Hattieville residents have this experience and they truly need NEMO or the government to come in and assist them as soon as possible.

Now we are at the house of Mister Rene Coleman. He lives by himself in this old wooden structure. Half of the roof has blown off during the hurricane. Mister Coleman had nowhere to go and he slept during this entire hurricane. Mister Coleman how did you manage to survive through the storm?”

Rene Coleman

“I use mi experience because I gone through thirty-one and sixty-one. I am eighty-eight years old.”

Jose Sanchez

rene coleman

“Mister Coleman is this your bedroom?”

Rene Coleman

“Take a walk right in there. I slept right here during the entire storm.”

Jose Sanchez

“Darrel Baptist could you tell us what happened here?”

darrel baptist

Darrel Baptist

“Well this hurricane weh push through to we, we couldn’t help it and first of all we noh have a proper shelter and we lose very well things. As you could see the only thing I got stand up here dah mi stove and that other stove and mi bed. I noh know here some of mi clothes gone. All deh holes weh yoh di see, breeze just start to come in and pop weh the windows, the doors, tear up everything. Wah serious devastation situation and we decided that we noh have no help. We sit down and we watch it from six o’clock up to four o’clock last night. We watch all deh trees gone, we watch house top di fly.”

Jose Sanchez

“That must have been scary.”

Darrel Baptist

“More than scary caz when my windows pop dat da when I really get scared. The whole half of my roof shattered and see now I have to take off all my roof and fix it back over.”