Gigantic tree destroys house
After three years of unheeded warnings to the Johannesburg Department of Housing, a tree has crushed the house of resident, Allen Cozens, injuring his wife and 16-year-old son and destroying most of his possessions.
The Cozens family from Florida has been left effectively homeless after an enormous portion of a gigantic Eucalyptus (blue gum) tree fell onto their house during a heavy thunderstorm on Sunday, February 18. This after they’ve been trying, unsuccessfully, for the past three years to have the tree removed.
According to the homeowner Allen Cozens, he has been sent from pillar to post for the past three years by the Johannesburg Housing Department, City Parks, and even the local ward councillor, who have each been shifting the responsibility over to the next.
The Cozens’ home has, over the past three years, sustained damage from time to time from smaller tree limbs falling onto the house. One time, a tree limb came crashing right through the roof, damaging furniture, and prompting expensive repairs.
Cozens says he knew it was only a matter of time before a serious incident happened, and now it has. “Now this tree, which I have been consistently warning the authorities about, has destroyed my house and caused injuries to my wife and my son,” said a distraught Allen.
Cozens was in his house on Sunday, spending a typical afternoon with his family, wife Bonita and 16-year-old son, Farrel.
“When we noticed the storm approaching, we set about our normal routine, closing windows and readying buckets under the few leak spots in the roof. My son was in his bedroom and my wife was on her way from the bedroom to the lounge. As she was about to step through the doorway to the lounge/ kitchen area, the tree came down and crashed through the roof, completely flattening the lounge and kitchen area. It happened in a split second.
“Without thinking, I grabbed her from behind and hurled her out of harm’s way. In the process, she sustained injuries on her arm and leg, as well as her hips where she had undergone a hip replacement in the past.
“My son was standing between his wardrobe and bed when the tree came down and he sustained a nasty bump to the head. We are still not sure whether he was hit by a tree stump or a piece of the collapsing roof.”
Allen scurried to get his family to safety and out of the house and called an ambulance to transport them to hospital.
“I could not even go to hospital with them,” he said. “How can you just leave everything you own to be further damaged by the rain, or to be stolen?”
Luckily their injuries do not seem to be life-threatening.
“The local ward councillor and the relevant authorities have been actively ignoring me since I brought this issue to their attention. During the Record’s last intervention in 2022, the ward councillor promised that he would ensure that this problem gets attended to. To date, he has not done a single thing.”
The Record has tried, without success, to contact the relevant authorities, including the CoJ’s Housing Department, City Parks, and the local ward councillor, Mboneni Thabane. A Puleng from the CoJ Housing Department, who according to the Record’s sources, is in charge of this issue, notified the Record that she would only communicate with the press via email, and undertook to share the email address via WhatsApp, which has not been received as yet.
Watch this space for more as this story develops.
