The number of families affected by Tuesday afternoon’s thunderstorm in Linden has now reached 50 and continues to rise as more requests for assistance are being made.
This is the information communicated to Stabroek News by Mayor Carwyn Holland, who has since made a request to the Government for financial support to help address the needs of affected residents.
“We have many persons who have been affected by the storm on Tuesday… we have places like the Dorfolk Elderly Home that has been affected and we are working to see how they can best remedy it,” he shared.
“We have recorded all the calls that persons made and they will be compiling it, and we are also working with unaffected residents to accommodate those who have been affected… As a municipality, we would like to be involved to help persons from our township. We need a collaborative effort with the RDC [Regional Democratic Council] and MTC [Mayor and Town Council] to ensure our people are taken care of and we need to see how best we can help them,” the Mayor further stated.
Additionally, unanswered calls made to the Civil Defence Commission (CDC) requesting assistance has prompted Holland to highlight the need for the establishment of a Disaster Response Committee for times like these.
“We, in Linden, need a Disaster Response Committee in place because we need to prepare for things like these, so that we can mobilize help to those who are affected when the need arises…the CDC has not been in contact with us. Today I tried to get on to some persons but I didn’t get through with any,” the Mayor noted.
It was reported in yesterday’s edition of the Stabroek News that several houses and other buildings, including the Christianburg/Wismar Multilateral School and the Mackenzie Market had suffered damage, after a freak storm hit Linden on Tuesday afternoon.
According to information supplied on Tuesday by Holland, heavy winds and rain which began just after three o’clock on Tuesday afternoon, lasted an hour and a half.
This, he said, seemed to have been a follow up to the rains and winds that had been experienced in the outlying areas of the town for at least three hours during the wee hours of Tuesday morning.
Holland also stated that though no reports of injured persons had been received, residents have been left traumatised. In terms of infrastructural damage, the Mayor noted that several buildings suffered as a result of the storm, including the multilateral school, as well as, the market which suffered damage to sections of its roof.
Several houses were also damaged, including one that was partially wrecked, after a nearby tree fell which was uprooted during the storm, fell on it.
Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni) and several other parts of the country have recently been rattled by violent thunderstorms. Residents have been left fearful in the aftermath of shattered houses and torn-off roofs.
In the wake of the storms, renewed questions have been raised about whether there is any information coming from the $550 million Doppler Radar which had been funded by the European Union in 2009. The radar was meant to serve a variety of purposes including providing some notice of the approach of violent weather.
