Melis­sa Doughty

A month af­ter dis­as­trous floods, some res­i­dents of north-west Trinidad are say­ing the Gov­ern­ment is yet to ful­fil its promise to clean drains, dredge rivers and com­pen­sate them for their loss­es, af­ter spend­ing $49 mil­lion and pledg­ing to spend $45 mil­lion more to com­plete clean-up ef­forts in the area. In­clud­ed in the scope of re­lief are re­me­di­al work on the hill­sides to pre­vent fur­ther land­slides and clear­ing drains and wa­ter­cours­es.

In in­ter­views with the T&T Guardian on Mon­day, peo­ple who live at Sinai Street, Chu­ma Mon­ka, Pinewood Gar­dens, La Es­tancia and West­vale Park in Glen­coe said they had not re­ceived the help they need­ed. Jo­hann Jacelon, of Sinai Street, Diego Mar­tin, was busy work­ing on his apart­ment when the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed. His apart­ment was com­plete­ly flood­ed on Au­gust 11 and he lost most of his be­long­ings.

Jacelon said he has done all he can to pre­vent a re­peat of the hav­oc, by buy­ing steel ta­bles, cre­at­ing sus­pend­ed beds, re­in­forc­ing his flood gate and con­struct­ing wa­ter­proof walls. He said he has not re­ceived any form of gov­ern­ment com­pen­sa­tion and has spent more than $30,000 to do the re­pairs. He said he is al­so yet to re­ceive a vis­it from gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.

"When the rain came on Sat­ur­day, it de­posit­ed silt in the riv­er again. There are boul­ders and rub­ble in the riv­er again. Every time the rain falls I am wor­ried. My wife and son, they hide in the back every time it rains. The Gov­ern­ment, Min­istry of Works, who­ev­er, needs to widen the riv­er to ac­com­mo­date the vol­ume," he said. Fear is a com­mon emo­tion shared by Diego Mar­tin res­i­dents. A woman who lives in La Es­tancia, Diego Mar­tin, who wished not to be iden­ti­fied, said she is al­so very fear­ful when it rains.

Her prop­er­ty sits snug­ly be­neath the Diego Mar­tin hills. The road is lined with boul­ders, rub­ble, mud and bro­ken pitch-all that is left of the road. She is wait­ing for the Gov­ern­ment to com­plete the clean-up ef­forts start­ed a month ago. "It is ridicu­lous. I have been vis­it­ed on nu­mer­ous oc­ca­sions by the cor­po­ra­tion, Min­istry of Works-and I am still wait­ing on for the drain to be re­paired. Every time it rains, the wa­ter en­ters my prop­er­ty," she said.

Pieces of con­crete are all that is left of what ap­pears to be a wall. The road, she said, hasn't been re­paired. Work done on the road by the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture, she said, has al­ready erod­ed. "The grav­el they placed at the top of the street has every­one skat­ing on it. You have to put the car in neu­tral every time you go down. These peo­ple [Diego Mar­tin Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion or Min­istry of Works] come and work for two hours. When the flood hap­pened we had over 32 CEPEP (Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme) work­ers here and they re­al­ly worked," she said.

She asked, in ob­vi­ous frus­tra­tion, "What is the Gov­ern­ment pay­ing these peo­ple to do?" The work­ers, she said, came by at 8 am and left by 10.30 am, promis­ing to re­turn, but nev­er did. Ger­ard Pinard, of Hold­er Dri­ve, West­vale Park, Glen­coe, whose house is in dan­ger of be­ing washed away, said au­thor­i­ties are yet to take ac­tion to se­cure his prop­er­ty. His back gate has since fall­en in­to the riv­er. Pinard said the au­thor­i­ties promised to build a wall in the riv­er to curb the ero­sion, but 32 days lat­er, noth­ing has been done.

Pinard is un­able to do any­thing about the prob­lem since the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to re­pair the drainage falls un­der the Min­istry of Works' Drainage Di­vi­sion. He said the di­vi­sion told him if he tried to do the re­pairs on his own, it would be il­le­gal and the di­vi­sion would re­move the wall. Pinard hopes it does not be­come worse and that he won't have to move.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion spe­cial­ist at the Diego Mar­tin Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Karen Siew­nar­ine said in a tele­phone in­ter­view with the T&T?Guardian she is aware that 200 cheques are be­ing print­ed at the mo­ment and would be dis­trib­uted soon by the Min­istry of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment. She could not give an ex­act date for the dis­tri­b­u­tion. She said cheques were first giv­en on Au­gust 30.

When asked about the res­i­dents' com­plaints, Siew­nar­ine said the var­i­ous min­istries in­volved and the cor­po­ra­tion have been work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly. Pos­si­bly, she said, res­i­dents were not see­ing the changes as quick­ly as they would like. The Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture, the Self Help Unit of the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and the Min­istry of the En­vi­ron­ment have all been as­sist­ing with the clean-up ac­tiv­i­ties.

She said 15 peo­ple are still re­sid­ing at the Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre. The Min­istry of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment and the Self Help Unit of the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment were now do­ing as­sess­ments on the peo­ple who are still there and would make a de­ter­mi­na­tion on the mat­ter.