Ali­cia Llanos

Tor­ren­tial rains yes­ter­day af­ter­noon caused ma­jor prob­lems for com­muters,

pas­sen­gers and res­i­dents along the East-West Cor­ri­dor yes­ter­day.

More than 50 hous­es in Spring Vil­lage were af­fect­ed by floods. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 672 homes in North and South Val­sayn were left with­out phone ser­vice due to dam­aged TSTT ca­bles. T&TEC al­so re­port­ed pow­er out­ages in parts of the East-West Cor­ri­dor, stretch­ing from San Juan to San­ta Rosa. Flood­ing al­so se­vere­ly af­fect­ed St Au­gus­tine, Curepe, Or­ange Grove, Trinci­ty, Ma­coya, Val­sayn and sev­er­al stretch­es along the East­ern Main Road.

Pres­i­dent of the Spring Vil­lage Coun­cil Mukesh Rad­hay con­firmed that more

than 50 homes in Spring Vil­lage were af­fect­ed by flood wa­ters, leav­ing dozens of res­i­dents in dis­tress. Rad­hay be­lieved the se­vere flood­ing had been caused by bad roads and an in­com­plete bridge over the Black­man

Ravine. He was call­ing the lo­cal gov­ern­ment au­thor­i­ties and the Min­is­ter of Works Colm Im­bert to as­sess and re­pair the un­fin­ished road and bridge works.

Spring Vil­lage res­i­dent Sil­vy Baldeosingh said, "There is wa­ter all over my house." Chair­man of the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Pa­tri­cia Mejias said em­ploy­ees of the cor­po­ra­tion had been de­ployed to as­sist those in dis­tress and was call­ing on those from oth­er cor­po­ra­tions, who had not been af­fect­ed, to help. She said nu­mer­ous homes had been se­vere­ly dam­aged and that busi­ness­es on the East­ern Main Road in Ma­coya had been flood­ed out and a few cars had been washed away.

Ac­cord­ing to Mejias this has been the worst flood in the area she has ever wit­nessed. Coun­cil­lor for Val­sayn South Khadi­jah Ameen said the sit­u­a­tion was "bad". Ameen, who was talk­ing dur­ing cleanup op­er­a­tions in

south­ern St Au­gus­tine, said that clean up and res­cue re­sources were sparse. She said the rea­son for this is that many em­ploy­ees of the cor­po­ra­tion were them­selves af­fect­ed by the flood­ing and were not able to leave their homes. Man­ag­er of Re­pub­lic Bank West in Tu­na­puna said the

bank's carpark was com­plete­ly flood­ed and small amounts of wa­ter had made

its way in­to the ground floor of the bank.

Man­ag­er of Hi­Lo, St Au­gus­tine, Dean Ec­cles said its carpark was ex­ten­sive­ly flood­ed. "A cou­ple of cars in the car park sus­tained wa­ter dam­age," he said, adding that due to the flood­ing the store was

in­ac­ces­si­ble. The hard­est hit, how­ev­er, were the fruit and veg­etable ven­dors in the area that had lost their stalls and pro­duce to the flood wa­ters.

Mi­ni twister at UWI

The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine, cam­pus, al­so re­port­ed dam­age. UWI Pro­fes­sor Dr Ra­jen­dra Ras­to­gi said the rain­fall had caused con­sid­er­able dam­age, say­ing that some parts of the cam­pus were un­der three to four feet of wa­ter. Be­sides flood dam­age, Ras­to­gi said a mi­ni twister had ap­peared on the south west­ern side of the cam­pus. He said the twister ap­peared around 2 o'clock and caused trees and branch­es to snap. He added that due to the fall­en fo­liage many staff mem­bers in the

Nat­ur­al Sci­ences block were un­able to leave cam­pus and the uni­ver­si­ty had lim­it­ed equip­ment to quick­ly rec­ti­fy the sit­u­a­tion. "I have worked here for 34 years. Nev­er have I seen such to­tal dev­as­ta­tion," he said