Res­i­dents of Ma­son Hall, To­ba­go, are thank­ful no one was hurt when trib­u­taries from the Sandy Riv­er over­flowed their banks yes­ter­day.

At Es­tate Trace, Adel­phi Road, the road­way over a bridge lead­ing to five fam­i­lies flood­ed "sud­den­ly" just af­ter 11 am.

Just over two weeks ago the en­tire trace was paved by the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) for the first time since the trace was built to ac­com­mo­date don­key carts over 40 years ago.

How­ev­er, the as­phalt on the bridge was re­moved by the force and height of wa­ter, res­i­dent Dave Ot­t­ley said.

De­scrib­ing the flow of wa­ter as "a riv­er come down," he said it was the first time since he be­gan liv­ing in the area as a child that the riv­er lev­el had risen so quick­ly.

"I was on the hill look­ing at the riv­er ris­ing but all of a sud­den the road was im­pass­able. I mean it was to­tal­ly cov­ered.

"The as­phalt cov­er­ing the road­way was shak­ing and mov­ing like some­one was wav­ing a black car­pet."

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Olvin Hen­ry, said the area al­so flood­ed bad­ly in 2009 but the wa­ter did not rise quick­ly.

"The wa­ter rose to that lev­el but the dif­fer­ence now is that it rose quick­ly."

He said since the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) built two dams high­er up on the wa­ter­course the wa­ter in the small riv­er has been a mere trick­le.

Hen­ry said his fa­ther, Samuel Hen­ry, who de­signed and con­struct­ed the bridge, would be glad it stood "the on­slaught and sud­den force of the wa­ter."

His fa­ther died in June.

Res­i­dents say they are glad the road was fi­nal­ly paved and are look­ing for­ward to the THA rais­ing the bridge's lev­el to ac­com­mo­date an in­creased flow of wa­ter.