THE house in which Collin Genus, his girlfriend, and her two brothers lived in Burnt Ground Housing Scheme in Santa Cruz, St Elizabeth, stood strong during the passage of the devastating Category 5 Hurricane Melissa. But just a few weeks after surviving that great danger, Genus faced disaster of a different type — fire.

No one was home last Wednesday, and Genus surmised that a fire lit near the back of the premises got out of control and spread to the three-bedroom house, destroying it.

He shared the cruel irony of how he found out that his house was ablaze.

“My work colleague and I have been repairing the buildings without roofs after the hurricane. We had one roof working on around the corner, and… the place [was filled with] black smoke. It was as if someone had lit tyres. [Our client] asked me where that smoke was coming from and I told him that someone was burning tyres, but I couldn’t tell exactly where the fire was coming from. At that time the house was on fire. When I reached around there I saw the raging fire,” Genus told the
Jamaica Observer.

“I saw the fire truck, a police unit, and a crowd of people. That was about 2:00 pm Wednesday and the house had burned down already. My girlfriend wasn’t here. She was at work nearby, so she could see the smoke from where she was. When she ran around here, she was only able to grab a few things to throw outside,” he said.

He explained that the only thing he was able to salvage from the rubble was a charred chisel, which he hopes to restore. Otherwise, the jack of all trades has nothing but the clothes on his back, and most troubling, no work tools or equipment.

“Every tool burn up, including my compressor. I do every kind of work. I had tools for everything. I spray vehicles, I do a little mason work, so I had trowel, hammer, and drill. Only thing I saved was the one hammer I carried with me when I was going to work,” he shared. “Even a bike we used to use to do deliveries burned out to nothing.”

Despite not having anywhere to call home at the moment, Genus said that while he figures that out, he continues to help restore other people’s houses that were damaged in the hurricane.

“The storm never affected [my] house. Houses around me were flooded with water and mud. Other people had to evacuate their houses,” he said.

“I would love some help to get back my tools,” he added. “I just told myself that I just have to work on it.”

Collin Genus’ house in Santa Cruz, St Elizabeth, was spared devastation during Hurricane Melissa in late October, but was destroyed by fire recently.

Collin Genus sharing his misfortune of having lost his house, tools, and other belongs to a fire, shortly after surviving Hurricane Melissa’s fury.

Collin Genus shows the ruins of his house in Santa Cruz, St Elizabeth.