Christmas remains uncertain for Mon Desir family after fire

A South Oropouche family's Christmas celebration remains in limbo after their electricity supply was lost when a neighbour's home burned down over the weekend.

Denise Acevero-Hosein's electricity meter and wiring were damaged at her Mon Desir Road, Dow Village, South Oropouche home on Sunday morning after her neighbour's home was allegedly set on fire.

She told Newsday her children spent Sunday night with relatives and she has since been trying to get the power restored. The TT Electricity Commission (T&TEC) requires the house to be rewired and reinspected before reconnecting the structure to the grid, so Acevero-Hosein said she was seeking help from the Ministry of Social Development and Family Services to get funding to carry out the necessary fixes.

"We have some documents I had to submit to Social Services and what not. I have an appointment tomorrow, so we have to take it from there."

She said she had contacted some electricians to undertake the work and was awaiting cost estimates. Now that Christmas is less than one week away, she said the family was uncertain if they would be able to celebrate it at home.

Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Acevero-Hosein knocked the fire and police services for not responding to her warning calls the previous night of the erratic behaviour of a man in the area.

However, she told Newsday on Monday she was now focusing on the road ahead.

"I'm still lucky that we didn't get hurt, we still have life and my grandmother always said where there's life there's hope so we just have to make the best out of a bad situation."

"We can't live in the past, it already happened. If they had responded all of this could have been avoided but it already happened. We can't do anything about something that happened already so we have to work towards trying to fix the problem now."

The man who allegedly started the fire was later found hiding in some bushes and was taken into police custody. Charges were expected to be laid.