Hurricane Dean, now Category 4, kills 4 in Caribbean

BY CAROL MATROO, Trinidad Guardian

The menace called Hurricane Dean is indirectly responsible for the death of a 48-year-old Mayaro woman who was killed in a freak accident early yesterday morning.

Althea Layne, who lived with her common-law husband Paul Zaki Ali at Plaisance Village, died after a 32-foot pirogue slammed into her, pinning her against a coconut tree.

The boat had broken its anchor and washed ashore because of the turbulent waters caused in part by Hurricane Dean.

The hurricane has been beating a path of destruction as it makes its way across the Atlantic Ocean to the Lesser Antilles.

According to Ali, the couple was asleep at home at around 5 am yesterday when “Tool,” a man who assisted him when fishing, awoke him.

“He was staying here that night. He come and wake me up and tell me the boat come ashore. When I went outside I see the anchor break off and the boat lying broadside in the yard…water was all in the yard,” Ali said as he waited to view his wife’s body at the Forensic Science Centre in St James, yesterday. Ali was still wearing the clothes he went to bed in the night before, dry now after being drenched by sea water earlier that morning.

His feet were bare below his brown, chequered boxer shorts.

He said both men went out to try and secure the boat when Layne came to assist.

“I tell she, ‘Go back inside, babe. We will handle it.’ But she still come and try to push the boat.”

Ali said the sea was unusually rough with high waves. While trying to pull the boat further into the yard, Ali said, a wave caused the pirogue to swing suddenly and hit Layne straight across the chest.

The mother of 14 was knocked unconscious as she was pinned against a coconut tree with the impact.

Ali said he called the Emergency Medical Service (EMS) which took almost two hours to reach the scene of the incident.

And while the boat drifted out to sea, Ali said he lay down on the wet, cold sand and held his wife’s lifeless body in his arms, trying to shield her from the punishing spray of the ocean.

“I just hold she and I just keep bawling. I couldn’t even hold she too good because a stingray stick me in my finger here,” Ali said, displaying a wound on his thumb.

“And I pound my hand with a piece of wood when I was hitting a shark.”

Ali said when the EMS finally arrived and took his wife to the Mayaro District Hospital, she was pronounced dead on arrival.

Ali said although his boat was almost brand new, its loss meant nothing to him.

“All I care about is Althea and now she gone. Is nothing else I could do, but see about burying she now,” he said in a solemn voice.
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Below i the Express report.

Hurricane Dean hundreds of miles from Trinidad brought monster waves that killed two people in the waters off the east coast yesterday.

Levi Williams, 50, was dragged away by rip current when he walked into the sea off Radix Village, Mayaro, during the daybreak high tide.

Six miles away at Sea Wall, Guayaguayare, mother of 14, Althea Layne, 48, was struck and killed by a fishing boat she was helping to bring ashore.

The deaths, which happened within an hour of each other, led life guards assigned to six miles of beach between Plaisance Village and Indian Bay, to ban all bathers from getting into the water.

The coastline was red-flagged and visitors warned of unusually strong rip currents and waters more than a metre higher that usual.

On Trinidad's west coast, the dead calm of the Gulf of Paria was replaced by crashing waves that led to residents living in shacks along Kings Wharf and Old train Line, Marabella, to leave their homes.

Work to dredge a channel for a water taxi service between San Fernando and Port of Spain was suspended for several hours and fishermen secured their boats against the waves being driven ashore by winds blowing west to east.

At the Shore of Peace Cremation site, waves eroded more land, and Mosquito Creek was flooded at around 6.30am when water that came with the high tide breached the sea wall.

Big waves were also reported along the east coast between Brickfield and Cedros.

Williams, of Diego Martin, was vacationing at a beach house when he reportedly went into the water with a friend at 5.50am.

He disappeared soon after.

Eight of his relatives were staying at the RASH Resort, according to manager Premchan Sookram.

The relatives are said to have paid divers to search for Williams. His body was still missing last night.

Layne lived with her common- law husband Paul Ali in a shack on the coast. Ali told police he was bringing his boat in when Layne waded into the water to help.

Ali said he warned her to stay back because of the swells.

The boat struck her in the chest. She was crushed between the boat and a coconut tree. She died before reaching the Mayaro District Hospital.

Her niece Emily Joseph said: "When I saw her she was bleeding from the mouth and nose. Her husband took this real hard. They were close".

The waves spilled into beach front homes, and Guayaguayare resident Anthony Charles said he had to remove 15 bags filled with debris from his home.

Ali's brother, life guard Yusuff Ali, said: "The entire sea has been stirred by this storm. This is why lifeguards place red flags on the entire beach and zoned off the water as a danger area."