By ONIKA JAMES Monday, October 12 2009

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ALL GONE: Rodney O'Brien, and his neighbour Cherry-Ann Fevecque, survey the ruins of their burnt out homes....

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THREE families, comprising of 12 persons were up to last night without a place to sleep, after fire gutted their homes in Beetham Gardens.

The victims, six of whom are children, could only watch in horror as their possessions went up in flames when the fire engulfed their homes on 18th Street on Saturday night. “We are literally staying on the road,” victim Tricia Albertie said yesterday.

With tears in her eyes and her voice cracking with emotion, Albertie recalled the horror as she returned from work on Saturday night to see the burnt ruins of her home.

“I left for work at about 6 am. When I came back in the night, I saw everything burnt to the ground. It was just flat. I’ve lost everything,” she cried.

Albertie, her husband Rodney O’Brien and two daughters lived in a building split into three in which the three families lived. Apart from Albertie and her family, Cherry-Ann Fevecque and her two sons who lived in another section of the building and Sharon Antoine and her four children who lived in an apartment at the back of the building, were also left homeless.

Albertie noted that persons in the area have already helped all they can but the families need some real hope at this time.

“Some officials said they would help, but that was since this morning. We have not seen them since. Councillor James Henry came here and saw our condition. He promised to come back. It is three o’clock in the afternoon now. We are still waiting,” Albertie said.

“I spent the night by my brother’s home but I cannot afford to stay at his home for long. Our kids have to go to school. We have no clothes...nothing. We need help,” she cried.

The cause of the blaze is yet to be determined but eyewitnesses claimed that a TTEC overhead wire was sparking shortly before the fire.

Distraught over the loss of his belongings, Rodney O’Brien who salvages from the nearby Beetham landfill told Newsday that he was in the process of renovating his home when the blaze occurred. O’Brien noted that he had “just saved enough money and bought some appliances” but it was all destroyed in the fire.

Cherry-Ann Fevecque also lamented that she had just purchased new appliances and furnished her home when the blaze “took everything.”