Rains cause havoc in Sumadh Gardens

A FALLING hog-plum tree on Monday caused havoc in the Sumadh Gardens residential area of Vistabella, narrowly missing the house of the late prime minister Patrick Manning. Incidentally, that day marked the second anniversary of Manning’s death.

Fire officers were busy clearing away parts of the huge tree, which fell on a house belonging to Cynthia Lee Mack at Alexander Street, Vistabella. Lee Mack, who is a retired music teacher at Presentation College San Fernando, was woken by a loud noise at around 5 am.

“I have been calling on the city corporation for many years asking them to remove the tree for fear that it will fall on my house,” an emotional Lee Mack said. Her worst nightmare came to pass yesterday: after the heavy rainfall during the night and into the early morning the tree fell.

The huge hog-plum tree stood on an overgrown vacant lot within ten feet of Lee Mack’s house. The tree was not the only problem. “The bushes are overgrown and it is has become the home of vagrants who do drugs there,” she said, adding that the bushhad also become the home for snakes, centipedes, scorpions, rats and other vermin.

Lee Mack has been living at this address with her family of five for 33 years. The falling tree damaged the roof of Lee Mack’s house as well as her guttering, plumbing and water tanks, and also brought down her mango tree and soursop tree.

“Today when the tree falls and the damage is done the fire service is here,” Lee Mack said, expressing her frustration about her previous fruitless calls. Widow of the late prime minister Hazel Manning, who is also a former local government minister, said she is concerned about this incident.

“Although Sumadh Garden is an upscale area, there are many issues affecting the residents,” Manning said. The unoccupied land next to her house, she explained, runs across to Alexander Street, where Lee Mack lives.

“The challenge really is to get owners to maintain their properties even though they do not occupy them,” she said. This is one of the things the government is trying to get passed in Parliament, she said, in the Local Government Bill.

“We were trying to get owners to take responsibility even though they don’t live on the land, and this bill will take care of this problem of the overgrown lots in the city and in the rural areas, where it is heavily populated and where these empty lots are just sitting there in between the houses and causing problems for residents.” Many people who own land, she said, but are living abroad or anywhere else in TT, should be made responsible for the upkeep of their properties.

Commenting on the fact that vagrants and drug addicts invade the empty lots close to her house, the former minister said she is not surprised. “I suppose street people will enter this space as no one is there to look after it,” Manning said. San Fernando Mayor Junia Regrello, was not available to take calls, and councillor for the area Phillip Montano said he could not talk.