Po­lice of­fi­cers yes­ter­day blocked off a sec­tion of the the North Coast Road to Mara­cas Bay af­ter a land­slide caused by heavy rains on Sat­ur­day cut off a por­tion of the road­way. Sev­er­al beach­go­ers were turned away and some res­i­dents were left strand­ed as no traf­fic was al­lowed past the Pil­lars on Sad­dle Road. Two trac­tors from the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture were used to clear away tonnes of de­bris. Of­fi­cials at the scene said they ex­pect­ed the road­way to be com­plete­ly cleared by 5 pm yes­ter­day.

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice is­sued an ad­vi­so­ry urg­ing mo­torists trav­el­ling on the North Coast Road to turn around. The ad­vi­so­ry stat­ed: "Nu­mer­ous land­slides on the North Coast Road have caused a mas­sive traf­fic along the road­way. Of­fi­cers of the TTPS, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness Man­age­ment (ODPM) and of­fi­cials of the Min­istry of Works are work­ing to clear the road in an ef­fort to pro­vide re­lief to the pub­lic."

The land­slides and the af­ter­math of flood­ing along the East-West Cor­ri­dor fol­low­ing week­end tor­ren­tial rains kept of­fi­cials of the ODPM and oth­er first re­sponse agen­cies busy through­out yes­ter­day. How­ev­er, even as he worked to bring re­lief to af­fect­ed res­i­dents, ODPM chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Dr Stephen Ram­roop ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment at the lack of co­op­er­a­tion from some first re­spon­ders. Ram­roop said he was dis­sat­is­fied with the ex­cus­es giv­en by some agen­cies for fail­ing to re­spond, in­clud­ing that it was near cur­few hours.

"We were dis­ap­point­ed in the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion es­pe­cial­ly. In Tu­na­puna, they would not come out be­cause of the con­di­tions," he said. "We got calls from Val­park and Val­sayn that they need­ed pow­er wash­ers and pumps but the de­ploy­ment de­pends on the URP and CEPEP work­ing un­der so­cial ser­vices and lo­cal gov­ern­ment." The Syn­op­tic Branch at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port is­sued a rough seas bul­letin and ad­vised ma­rine in­ter­ests that sea con­di­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly along the north and east coasts, were rough as re­sult of strong winds.

The heavy show­ers were due to an ac­tive In­ter-Trop­i­cal Con­ver­gence Zone. Ac­cord­ing to the ODPM, ar­eas af­fect­ed by flood­ing in­clud­ed Char­lotte Street, In­de­pen­dence Square and South Quay in Port-of-Spain; the in­ter­sec­tion of the Churchill Roo­sevelt and Uri­ah But­ler High­ways; Mt Lam­bert, El So­cor­ro, Curepe, St Au­gus­tine South, Acono, Mara­cas/St Joseph, Mal­oney Gar­dens, Bon Air Gar­dens/Five Rivers, Val­sayn North, Mal­abar, Gold­en Grove Road, Va­len­cia and Man­zanil­la.

Land­slides oc­curred along the North Coast Road, Ari­ma/Blan­chisseuse Road and Abbepu­jade Road in Care­nage. Bridges col­lapsed at Ma­coya Gar­dens-Phase 3 and Sur­rey (Lopinot). Yes­ter­day dam­age as­sess­ments and clean up ef­forts were un­der­way in Mt Dor, Val­sayn North, D'Abadie, Mal­oney, Pi­ar­co and Mt Lam­bert. By yes­ter­day morn­ing, most of the flood wa­ters had re­ced­ed and wa­ter lev­els in the main riv­er cours­es had sta­bilised.