–says it started in empty section of house
The elderly woman left homeless after fire engulfed her Pitt Street, New Amsterdam home on Thursday night is anxious to find out the cause of the blaze as no one occupied the section of the house where it started and it had no electricity.
Seventy-seven-year-old Ethlyn Bristol-Newton told Stabroek News that she was awakened by her security alarm but she saw no smoke. The woman said though she turned the alarm off the ringing persisted and it was then that she heard her niece calling out to her that the house was on fire. The woman said she did not turn back but exited the house in her nightgown and slippers. Bristol-Newton said she it was only after she had gone over to her niece’s house, which was located in the same yard, did she see the smoke billowing from the front of her home.
Stabroek News understands that the fire service responded promptly to the summons, though the tankers had no water. At this point one of Bristol-Newton’s tenants started to pull the weeds from the clogged Republic Road trench to allow them access to water but the officers soon said none was forthcoming. The woman said it took some time for the firemen who were assisted by residents, to locate the town’s water supply though by this time the fire had already spread to the section of the house that she occupied.
Bristol-Newton said she found it strange that the front section of the house had caught fire. The house is divided into two sections and is connected by a hallway. The fire started in the first section which boasts two bedrooms. It quickly spread to the second section of the two-storey building. Bristol-Newton said she had moved over to the bottom flat in the second section of the house three months ago to facilitate painting and that it was only on the morning of the fire that carpenters had put some of her chairs in the sitting room. The woman said only the chairs and her refrigerator remained in that section.
Additionally, Bristol-Newton said her grandson Adrian Bristol had recently moved a few items into the upper storey of the other part of the house as he had planned to move in to keep her company. The woman said she lived at the said location for 40 years and that the double house was built in 1975. She said a video game shop operated from the bottom flat of the second half of the home and she lost all of the nine television sets installed, though she could not estimate all of her losses.
Bristol-Newton said she is grateful that she had the alarm since she was alone and asleep when the fire started. She is currently being sheltered at her grandson’s New Street home and will soon move to her niece’s home as the stairs there are easier to climb.
(Keisha McCammon)
