By Laurina B. Lormia
(Cub Reporter)
The African Methodist Episcopal Zion University (AMEZU) and surrounding areas have been affected with a destructive windstorm, which violently tore down the entire roof of the university building, and caused significant damage to nearby homes, leaving residents devastated.
On Tuesday April 3, the heavy windstorm wreaked havoc on the university and nearby homes, causing extensive damage to the school’s roof and destroying vital documents, valuable belongings, and residents’ properties.
According to the Vice president of the AMEZU, R. Kofa Kloh, he said, early this morning. the Dean of Admissions called and told him about the disaster the storm had caused the university, and upon his arrival this morning, he found out that 95 percent of the building had been destroyed by the windstorm.
“It is a very serious setback for the institution; we just got through with our final exam and were informing instructors to start preparing their lessons for the second semester, which is scheduled for May. We are also expecting our graduation to be in August, but with this kind of disaster, I don’t know how it’s going to be like,” he said.
“The office we stored all of the data in is completely damaged and our data base is down as well from the heavy downpour of rain; the admission office is one of the key offices of the university, so I don’t know, because if all of the things are damaged, then students who have graduated from the university will not be able to get their documents,” Kloh lamented.
“When I spoke with some of the residents who got affected by the roof of the university, they said we are responsible for their damages, so I told them that this is a national issue; it is not something that has been made by us, and we all just need to put our hands together to call on the Government, humanitarians, and others who will help us,” he added.
He continued, “We are calling on our alumni, stakeholders, Government of Liberia, humanitarians, and others around the world, to come to our aid, to see how best we can do away with this as soon as possible to rescue Zion University.”
The Dean of Admissions, Beatrice Washington, said, “Though we have this damage of our database, but we have a backup; whenever we get through with our work, we usually save in our backup. We have a lot of our work and documents saved in the backup, so we will check it out to see if we can get the documents out.
Meanwhile, Ruth Nagbe, whose properties were destroyed by the storm, said, “Last night, while sleeping, LEC went off, and in no time, the windstorm started. “When I woke up, because of the fear from the heavy storm, my daughter went outside to remove her clothes from the line because of the rain; immediately she got out of the house, the storm brought the entire roof from Zion down on our house, and we got badly affected by it, and everything in our house got damaged.”
“My husband died last year March, and I’m here with my two daughters and seven grandchildren; my other daughter, who is pregnant, got hit by the stick and went off. We immediately rushed her to JFK Hospital this morning; we don’t have anybody to help us fix our roof. I met with the school administrators to help me fix my roof, but they told me that it was a disaster and they cannot do anything about it. They only brought people to remove the roof from the house,” she narrated.
“So I’m appealing to the Government of Liberia, humanitarians, and others whose hearts God can touch, to be a help to me, because I don’t have any money keeping now to fix the roof. I was selling food and drinks in the shop in front of my house, and the shop got affected by the storm too,” she concluded.
