Five-year-old girl, three men crushed to death
A five-year-old girl and three construction workers were crushed to death in two separate incidents Wednesday night and yesterday morning, bringing to six the number of fatalities recorded so far due to heavy showers associated with Tropical Storm Nicole.
The awful death of little Tashanna Wallace hit her grandmother Jerdene Muir real hard, particularly because the two were inseparable.
On Wednesday, like every other night since Tashanna was a baby, the two shared the same pillow on Muir’s bed in a small wooden structure in Banga Gully, Christian Pen, in Portmore, despite the fact that the child’s mother lives in an adjoining house in the same yard.
Sometime after 8:00 pm when the duo, along with two other family members, retired to bed, the branch of a huge ‘Chinese nut’ tree fell on the house, crushing the child as she slept.
“Is me and her head deh pon the same pillow, and me just get up to answer a call on my cellphone and by me could do that, me just hear a loud noise and the house top just come down,” a tearful Muir told the Observer.
Muir said it took what seemed like forever to dig the child out from the rubble.
“From me see her neck drop over so when them teck her out, me know she dead,” she said.
Muir said Tashanna’s 10-year-old brother was determined to help dig her out, working alongside the men in the pouring rain to free her.
“Him say him nah stop till him find him sister, and him really work to get her out,” she said, explaining further that it took a while to remove the many concrete blocks which, before the tragedy, were holding down the zinc on the roof.
Tashanna’s mother, Kadesha McKenzie, said she had just found the money to buy uniform and school supplies for her daughter who had only just resumed classes at Hamilton Gardens Basic School.
McKenzie described Tashanna, who was the younger of her two children, as a fun-loving little girl who acted way older than her age and always made those around her laugh.
She is convinced that Tashanna might have had a premonition about her death, as earlier that day she kept telling everyone that today was her “born day” (the day she was born).
“Me never hear she say that before, and she just ah go round and a laugh and say is me born day as if she did know what was going to happen to her,” McKenzie said, her eyes filled with tears.
The other occupants of houses in the yard, while distraught at the child’s death, were particularly angry at the owner of the adjoining premises where the huge tree is rooted.
According to the irate residents, they begged the owner on several occasions to trim the overhanging branches but he refused to do so.
Muir told the Observer that she had asked the owner to trim the tree after a branch fell from it and damaged her house a few years ago. But instead of cutting the overhanging branches, Muir said he threatened a lawsuit against anyone who dared to cut a limb.
“When we point out the danger, him say if anyone cut him tree him carrying dem go to court, and see what happen now,” said one irate resident.
During the interview, a group of men was busy removing the overhanging branches from the tree. The owner was nowhere in sight as he was said to be currently living overseas.
Councillor for the Gregory Park division Camile Buchanan, who arrived at the house shortly after the incident, said she had arranged and paid for the men to remove the overhanging branches from the tree as it still posed a threat to a number of other houses.
“The majority of the tree could still fall on the other houses, so I had to arrange to have it cut,” she told the Observer.
Buchanan also said she has already spoken with labour and social security minister Pearnel Charles, who has given his commitment to assist the family to rebuild their house and to provide any other assistance possible. She said she had also made contact with Food for the Poor to get relief supplies for the family.
In the second incident, Anthony Pernell, Denzel Malcolm, and Ryan Malcolm — who were all from St James addresses — died after a retaining wall crumbled onto a shed in which they were sleeping in Norbrook, St Andrew yesterday morning.
People at the scene told the Observer that the soil beneath the retaining wall — which stood metres from the shed — was eroded by rainwater, causing the wall to give way and fall on the structure.
Fire-fighters removed the men’s bodies from beneath the rubble, taking them to lower ground where they were processed by the police.
Gary Vassell, one of the workmen on the site, cried openly as he reflected on the tragedy.
Vassell had opted to sleep in his car after repeatedly expressing concerns to his colleagues about the safety of the shed.
“I never like how the shed felt last night, something just tell me not to sleep there,” recounted Vassell.
“A part of the house (which they were working on) is finished and they could have gone in there to sleep,” he grieved. “But I guess they felt more comfortable in the shed, and never wanted to move.”
The daughter of one of the dead men fought back tears when police prevented her from seeing her father’s body. The despondent woman leaned onto a motor vehicle with a blank stare.
Residents at the scene expressed fear for their lives and property following the incident.
“These rains are serious. Look what happen to them man here. I just pray my little tabernacle stay safe,” said one woman, who described the men as “good persons”.
On Wednesday, flood waters from Tropical Storm Nicole took the lives of 14-year-old Keniji Boyd in St Andrew and 73-year-old St Elizabeth farmer Lenford Blake.
Yesterday, Observer Editor-at Large Garfield Myers reported that Nicole left a trail of devastation in St Elizabeth and Manchester.
The communities of Bigwoods, Vineyard and Arlington, all in South West St Elizabeth, are marooned, while flood waters forced many families from their homes in Parottee.
Roads all over St Elizabeth have been badly damaged, making it difficult to get to many communities, while in New Market water continues to rise at an alarming rate.
Mandevile Mayor Brenda Ramsay, in describing the situation in South Manchester, said: “Something terrible is happening there. If you see Alligator Pond, you cry.”
Officials in both parishes told the Observer that part of the problem they are having is that they can’t make a proper assessment of the damage until the rains end.
The Observer was also informed that many communities in St Elizabeth and Manchester have no water.
Yesterday, Dr Christopher Tufton, the member of parliament for South West St Elizabeth, said he intends to call a meeting as soon as possible of the relevant agencies involved in development to discuss the approvals process.
“It is very clear to me that in a number of places it is the blocking and dumping up of the natural run-off that is causing the kind of flooding we are seeing in some of these areas,” Tufton said.