Mount Sinai family homeless after fire

Jun 18, 2008 News

MOUNT SINAI, WEST CANJE – Avril Johnson and her family are now homeless after a mid-morning fire destroyed their home at Lot 14 Mount Sinai, West Canje, yesterday.

Those now without a place to call home are Avril Johnson’s 19-year-old twins, Stacy and Stayman Johnson, her grandchildren: nine-year-old Shawn Blair– a student of St. Aloysius Primary School; Devon De Jonge, 12, of Canje Secondary School; three-year-old Onisa Johnson and six-month-old Michael Johnson.

The matriarch related that she was in the yard, having completed their laundry and then deciding to clean the front stairway, at about 10:30 hours, when disaster struck.

At the time, only Onisa was at home with her. The child was left unattended in the two-bedroom house.

“I calling her, I say, ‘Onisa, Onisa!’ I pick up the bucket and I heard something go – bram! So I say, ‘Onisa, what you throw down there?’ She does stammer li’l bit and she got tie tongue, and she say, ‘Ah, gwanny, nah me, nah me!”

The 55-year-old woman said she immediately went up the back stairway. “I see fire in the second bedroom. I pulled Onisa down and run. That’s it!”

The woman said that she is certain that matches were not left within hand reach of the three-year-old. “No matches were in Onisa reach.

No stove was on. I cook since yesterday (Monday) and put it up.”
Ms Johnson explained that the building was without electricity.

The property belonged to Celis DeWeaver of East Canje. Ms. Johnson and her family moved in six months ago. The building was re-wired to accommodate them, she said, but the electricity was never supplied.

She pointed out that even if neighbours had formed a bucket brigade, still they could not have saved the building. The Johnsons lost everything.

“We ain’t save anything, nothing at all! Right now I can’t say how much them things worth.” Andrew Sinclair lives across the road, it was he who called the Guyana Fire Service.

“I hear she hollering, ‘Fire!’ When I look out on my verandah I see fire in the roof. By the time I call the fire engine and come back, the thing done burn.”

According to him, the Fire department was prompt. “They come really fast. By the time I come down I did done hearing the siren.”