Strong wind blows roof off house
On Monday afternoon the entire roof framework and the zinc sheets were blown off a house located along the Apensastraat. “It was the devil in the form of the wind. I witnessed how a strong wind took the entire roof”, a local resident told Times of Suriname. The local resident who lives across the street from the house that lost its roof was sitting in a chair outside when he heard the wind. He described it as a whirling wind that went along a ditch before heading upwards and blowing the roof off a house and into a next-door neighbor’s yard. When the roof fell in the neighbor’s yard it also damaged the neighbor’s garage. The strong wind then moved towards the scrap yard that is located nearby before going towards Blauwgrond via the street. “I am 71 years old but I had never seen such a strong wind before in my life. I have heard stories about hurricanes and such but I witnessed a whirlwind for the first time ever. Everything happened in two minutes. The wind made an awful loud noise. Fortunately there weren o children on the street. Nobody was injured. I wanted to run away because I thought that the strong wind would take me away. Luckily the wind did not come to my side of the street”, said the resident. The owner of the roofless house, Paul Hyslop, deems it sad and inconvenient that the wind blow the roof off his house. Reports indicate that the fire department and the National Coordination Center for Disaster Control (NCCR) placed a tarpaulin on the house. Hyslop estimates that thousands of Surinamese dollars will be needed to construct a new roof structure and to buy new zinc sheets. He was at home with his son and two other boys when the incident took place. “Fortunately nobody was injured”, said Hyslop who expressed his gratitude for the help he received from the fire department, the NCCR and his neighbors. The man’s son was sitting in the living room when he suddenly saw all the chairs in the house being lifted and being blown in circles in the house. After that he saw that the roof was gone. “Everything happened very fast.”