Freak storm wreaks havoc in GT
-destroys NIS Sports Club
EXTREMELY heavy winds yesterday morning caused the entire upper floor of the more than 40-year-old  two-flat National Insurance Sports (NIS) Complex on Carifesta Avenue to crumble. Inside the building, which formerly housed the Guystac Sports Complex, were two NIS employees, Jason McKenzie and Sherwin Gordon, while caretaker/groundsman Alliende Henry was on the outside.
On the tarmac, as well as on the field, were some cricketers who were there to participate in a match in the ongoing Kares Engineering Tapeball Competition.
They were all privy to the destruction wrought by the storm, and those with whom the Chronicle spoke said they were left “in awe” as the winds approached, twister-style, moving just about everything in its path.
When the ordeal, which lasted briefly, was over, Gordon and two youth cricketers, one of them, Keron McCarthy, sustained injuries, with the former faring the worse. He had to be rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) where he was treated and sent away for lacerations to the head and leg.
McCarthy, a student of Brickdam Secondary School, sustained injuries to his hands when a post fell on him while trying to seek refuge in the building. The other cricketer was injured on the nose. McKenzie said Gordon was injured while trying to escape sparking electricity wires.
He recalled he and Gordon being engrossed in a game of cricket on the television when he heard Henry remark: “Like water coming in the building.” He said that as looked through the glass door to see what Henry was talking about, he noticed water which had been lodged on the field from the overnight and early morning rains “moving in a circular motion” towards the building.
The man said that almost simultaneously, there was the loud crashing of glass, which caused them to make a mad dash for the door to get out of the building, while the cricketers, fearing for their lives, were making for the building.
The latter however, stopped short at the door on realising that those inside were trying to get out. As McKenzie observed, more confusion reigned as the electrical wires began to spark. He said Gordon was injured by falling debris while hustling down the stairway.
Henry, the groundsman, said he was standing on the pavilion with some other persons chatting about cricket and the overnight weather conditions when it began raining. He also recalled one member in the group asking whether the others had heard the news reports which mentioned that a few tornadoes were expected.
“ With that,” he said, “a heavy breeze started to come across the ground; all the water from the ground start sweeping from the north to the south. Two zinc (sheets) start flying in de air.”  He said that while the other men he was with ran to the upper flat, he darted downstairs.
But on realising the danger upstairs posed, the men darted back down the stairs.
The caretaker said one cricketer jumped from the stairway to the ground on seeing the wind moving glass bottles in the air; another held on for dear life on a container nearby.
Henry said he was literally screaming in fear when he saw what was happening around him.
And it was quite an experience for 13-year-old McCarthy, who said he was standing on the stairs, somewhere about the middle, with about four members from the Transformers cricket team, Henry and a Rastarfarian guy.
He too said it was during the discussion about the impending tornado that he noticed the unusual movement of the grass and water on the field, as well as bottles and zinc sheets being dislodged.
He said when they tried to run inside the top of the building, it started to collapse and in his haste to seek shelter, he too fell and was injured.

In the aftermath, in addition to debris from the collapsed upper floor, zinc sheets were scatted all round, some even hanging  precariously on fences, along with the  broken bottles. A section of the Guyana Softball Cricket Ground was also damaged. 
Chief Internal Security Officer, Claudius Fraser and several NIS staffers were on the scene. Later, a group of about seven women and a male arrived in a motorcar, looking quite bewildered with wedding decorations in tow.
On being questioned, they reluctantly disclosed that they were from Mc Doom and unknowingly were there to decorate the venue for a wedding, which was to be hosted there last evening.
According to reports from the Timehri Hydrometeorological Office, the current
rainy conditions being experienced in the country is as a result of the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone( ITCZ)  phenomenon, coupled with the passing of a tropical wave.
Conditions associated with this weather pattern are expected to prevail throughout most of the day, the report added.