RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

As the Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Of­fice is­sued an ad­verse weath­er warn­ing ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing, sev­er­al parts of south and cen­tral Trinidad ex­pe­ri­enced pow­er out­ages, flash flood­ing, and fall­en trees caused by sev­er­al hours of con­sis­tent rain­fall and gusty winds.

In south Trinidad, the rains start­ed be­fore dawn and con­tin­ued in­ter­mit­tent­ly un­til mid-morn­ing.

Along the M2 Ring Road, Videsh Laldeo and his 85-year-old fa­ther Dan Laldeo, were busy putting their ap­pli­ances on high­er ground. Laldeo al­so se­cured his chick­en cages as wa­ter rose in his back­yard.

“Right now we are pray­ing that the rains would sub­side. It is re­al­ly hard deal­ing with this,” Laldeo said, point­ing to a lake of floods be­hind his home.

Laldeo said since a pri­vate busi­ness­man con­struct­ed a road near his home, the main drain was blocked and the wa­ter has no place to flow.

At Mon­key Town in Bar­rack­pore, flood wa­ters were al­so seen in front of the home of the late chut­ney icon Sun­dar Popo. Li­ma Al­lick and her fam­i­ly were ma­rooned in­side their home for sev­er­al hours. Al­lick said she and her moth­er Gra­cie De­o­raj were sick and they could not get out be­cause of the floods.

“The car got wa­ter in the en­gine. It can­not move and we had some wa­ter un­der the house,” she said.

The winds al­so knocked over a tree along Brash Boule­vard, Palmiste. Coun­cil­lor Roland Halls, who was on site, said res­i­dents from sev­er­al blocks in Palmiste had to use al­ter­na­tive routes to get out.

Halls said even though the tree fell around 6.45 am, it was al­most two hours lat­er that it was fi­nal­ly re­moved be­cause the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit had no pow­er saw.

“Dozens of peo­ple from the area were un­able to pass along the Boule­vard. There was traf­fic on both sides of the Boule­vard. The Fire Ser­vices Pre­ven­tion Unit ar­rived around 8 am. They re­turned with a pow­er saw and man­aged to clear the de­bris. Work­ers from Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion who were on stand­by loaded the tree on the truck,” Halls said.

In Cen­tral Trinidad, com­mu­ni­ties along the Bras­so/ Ca­paro Val­ley Main Road al­so ex­pe­ri­enced floods.

Chair­man of the Cou­va Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Hen­ry Awong said the Preysal Riv­er over­flowed and there was flood­ing along the Solomon Ho­choy High­way near Chase Vil­lage.

“Ar­eas af­fect­ed were Pi­paro, Ca­paro Val­ley Road, Mamoral Num­ber 2, Fairview Park, Freeport, South­ern Main Road, Chase Vil­lage, Gan­ness­ingh Street, Bal­main, Lack­an Dri­ve, De­onar­ine Junc­tion, Sharpe Road, Ca­paro, Lee Blanc Trace, Todds Road, Carr Trace, Ca­paro. In the Fairview Park ar­eas, sev­er­al homes were af­fect­ed but it was not as bad as we an­tic­i­pat­ed,” Awong said.

Chair­man of the Pe­nal/ Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Dr Allen Sam­my said the floods sub­sided quick­ly be­cause of the low tide. He said parts of Low­er Bar­rack­pore and Mon­key Town ex­pe­ri­enced flood­ing.

Coun­cil­lor for Ce­dros Shankar Teelucks­ingh said Ce­dros ex­pe­ri­enced a pow­er fail­ure from 1.30 am and T&TEC crews were able to re­store elec­tric­i­ty af­ter mid­day. There was min­i­mal flood­ing.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, head of the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness Capt Neville Wint said the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment did not have to co-or­di­nate any re­sponse to the ad­verse weath­er con­di­tions.

How­ev­er, he said teams un­der the Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and Rur­al De­vel­op­ment re­spond­ed to var­i­ous calls of flood­ing, fall­en trees, land­slides and fall­en util­i­ty poles, in ar­eas most af­fect­ed by the ad­verse weath­er sys­tem.

By 1 pm yes­ter­day, the T&T Me­tere­o­log­i­cal Of­fice can­celed the ad­verse weath­er warn­ing. Me­te­o­rol­o­gist Gary Ben­jamin said the rain­fall ac­tiv­i­ty due to the ITCZ had dis­si­pat­ed. Ben­jamin urged cit­i­zens to mon­i­tor the up­dat­ed fore­casts and in­for­ma­tion from the Met Of­fice as the ITCZ was ex­pect­ed to linger over the next few days.