– residents recall frightening moments of destructive wind

EVEN as residents recall the horrific scenes of Friday afternoon’s storm, efforts are underway to ensure that the Mahdia Primary School, which felt the brunt of the rainstorm, is ready for school on Monday.

A team from the Civil Defence Commission (CDC), along with Minister of Communities, Ronald Bulkan, is in Mahdia in the Potaro-Siparuni where an assessment of the damage sustained during the storm is being undertaken.

CDC head, Lieutenant Colonel Kester Craig, noted in a Facebook post that the Regional Disaster Risk Management System has been activated in the town the freak storm visited.
The storm blew away roofs of homes within minutes. Approximately 45 per cent of the zinc-sheet roof of the Mahdia Primary School was ripped off by the heavy winds.
The CDC, through the regional mechanism, which was set up to provide first response during emergencies, has provided cleaning supplies, zinc sheets and other construction materials to facilitate urgent repairs to the structures.

Craig said fortunately, neither the pupils nor teachers of the school were injured in the incident. A woman, however, was medivaced to Georgetown for treatment.
Harley Joseph of the Mahdia Town Council told this newspaper, on Friday, that in all his life at the town, he had never experienced such a situation.

Lorianne Ranjee, a resident of Mahdia, told the Guyana Chronicle that the situation was frightening for the few minutes that it lasted.

Another resident reported that a few houses were left without roofs while trees fell along the roadway linking the town with the coast. She said late Friday afternoon following the storm, passengers were left stranded after the roadway was blocked by a fallen tree.
“It was serious, someone said if it lasted an hour it could have been worst,” she added.