A Princes Town family of seven is today homeless after a fire destroyed their home on Saturday morning. Mother of two Lizelle La Foucade made an appeal for help when the T&T Guardian visited the family’s St Croix Road home yesterday. La Foucade, 34, her sons Timothy, 12 and Aaden, six, mother Mary, 64, her brother and sister and her eight-year-old daughter lived in the three-bedroom wooden house.
She said the fire started around 3.20 am on Saturday, but luckily no one was at home at that time. “I was by my children’s father for the night. I got a call around minutes to four telling me the house had burn down,” La Foucade said. By the time she got to the house it was nothing but a pile of ashes, she said.
“We lost everything, all the children books, school clothes, my ID card, everything. I am staying with my sister, but she has a little house and it is really hard right now,” she said. One neighbour who was up at the time of the fire described what he saw. “It started in the left front room and was burnt completely in just under ten minutes,” said Dane Lawrence.
“The whole house was just a ball of fire.” Firefighters from the Princes Town Fire Station responded, but were unable to save the house. La Foucade valued her losses at around $250,000. The T&T Guardian contacted manager of the People’s Unit in the Ministry of the People and Social Development, Asauph Ghany, who promised to give the family any assistance the ministry could offer.
La Foucade is appealing to the public for assistance. Anyone wishing to assist the family can call the Guardian’s South office at 652-3700 for more information.