A FREAK storm which started in Hururu, a mining area next to Aroaima, Region 10 (Upper Demerara/Upper Berbice), after causing considerable damage there, picked up steam and moved to Amelia’s Ward late Monday afternoon, uprooting trees in its path, smashing windows and in some cases, literally lifting roofs off houses and tossing them aside.

Fortunately, there were no casualties, but a few families were left homeless, both in Hururu, where the Teachers’ Hostel was left without a roof and furniture and other household effects badly damaged, and Amelia’s Ward, Linden as well.
Terrified residents of Linden recalled that the storm hit Amelia’s Ward sometime after 16:00 hrs, first targeting central Amelia’s Ward, and eventually spreading its devastating reach to the entire ward, before moving downhill and gradually subsiding but leaving millions of dollars of damage in its wake. The ordeal lasted for about two hours, residents said.
Meanwhile, that development severely tested the quality of many building contractors’ work, since, apart from the roofs which were torn off, at least one person’s concrete walls crashed to the ground, leaving only rubble behind. Some persons surmise that the roofs which were lifted off in the storm, were not properly bolted down, and could have resulted in the loss of lives.
But residents, at the end of the ordeal contended that workers at the Linden Utility Company moved too slowly to take the power off, noting that persons could have been electrocuted. They claim that because of the high mineral content in the soil at Linden, there have been cases in the past, where the mere clap of lightning caused serious debilitating injuries to persons using phones when hit.
One woman who was cooking on an electrical stove at the time the storm started, said all she could remember seeing, was her stove, pot and everything of it turn ‘crimson red’ and she feared her home would have gone up in flames. “The pot on the stove looked literally like a ball of fire,” she recalled and she hastened to get the main switch off. But more than that, one person reported that his electrical circuit breaker tripped.
The mopping up exercise is now underway and affected persons are beginning to count their losses, wondering just what help would be there for them as they seek to have their homes restored.
It is not clear what arrangements have been put in place to accommodate the school teachers whose roof has was blown off the hostel last Sunday. But affected as they all are, everyone is thanking God for spared lives, adding that it was just a miracle that roofs could be blown down and no one get hurt.