Blind women brave the flood

Candice John, 34, is visually impaired and lives alone on the corner of Kaffie and Pillai Streets, Spring Village, Valsayn. But after Saturday’s onslaught of flood, she’s thinking twice.

She came home from work last Friday afternoon from the National Centre for Persons with Disabilities, San Fernando, in pouring rain, and told Newsday she “got this funny feeling” when the rain continued late into the night.

She told Newsday she called her mother, who sensed fright in her voice. John’s downstairs apartment is among other homes on the plains north of the hard-hit Kelly Village. As the rain pounded her roof, she just didn’t want to go to sleep. She must have dozed off, she said, when suddenly her ears picked up the sound of gushing water at the back of her house.

Minutes later, John said, she stepped in water, her front door having almost been pushed open, as the road had already flooded, amidst lightning and thunder.

John called her mother again, who told her to use bedsheets to block the space under the door. But by the time she had done that, “Water gushed from the back into the house.”

It was then John decided to call the police. “The police told me to leave the house. I was frightened. The police ask if I have lights.

“I said that it didn’t make a difference to me.” She began to pack furniture, dishes and other valuables on coutertops and even the toilet tank. But the water was rising.

Suddenly, she said, like the hand of God, someone pushed open her window. It was a tenant from another apartment, who took her to safety.

Asha Kamachee, 45, is on the council of the Blind Welfare Association, and was born visually impaired, She lives in Kelly Village, the area in Caroni worst-hit by the floods, with her parents, Rose, 73, and Harry Kamachee, 75.

She related her experience on Saturday, describing the gushing waters as the most frightful experience.

“I fear the beach. I don’t like to hear the sound of waves. That was what I was hearing two o’clock in the morning. I keep hearing voices saying that the water rising.

“Where will I know where to swim to? When you are blind, you are on your own. There’s no loneliness like being blind.”

She walked towards the front door, not knowing where she was putting her feet. The water was almost knee-high. Obviously unable to see where she was going, Kamachee tried to get to her parents’ bedroom to wake them. She felt her way around, but the sound of water against the door was too much for her to bear.

She felt her way back to her room and sat on her bed. Moments later, she was rescued by her brothers who lifted her to the home of their sister, Usha Balkaran.

But by daybreak on Saturday, her sister’s house was inundated by water four feet high.

Describing the ordeal of having to brave the flood to move to a safer place, Kamachee said, “I blind, so remember, I cannot see where I putting my foot. My clock did done tell me the time in the night.

“I never thought I’ll ever go through something like this. I never thought how the blind will fare when a disaster strike.”

Valarie Antoine, 56, lives at Cassava Drive, La Platta Gardens, Valencia, and was home with her son, who is speech-impaired. Her husband, Keith Antoine, 54, is also visually impaired, but was not at home when at around 6 pm, the Valencia river burst its banks. Water came rushing into their home and it was that sound that alerted Antoine.

“The noise of the water gushing get me frightened, so I call my husband and he tell me he coming, but I need to leave the house.”

Keith reached home in time to save his wife and son, but could not save their furniture and appliances, which were soaked and drenched in water.

Yesterday, president of the Blind Welfare Association Kenneth Suratt appealed to government to help all those visually impaired people affected by the flood.

He said, “These people are usually in the low-income bracket. In fact, there should be a census of all of those people with varying disabilities who were affected.”

Anyone who wants to help John (465-9618) Kamachee (680-7025) and Antoine (482-0856) can contact them by phone.