Michelle Loubon

Chair­man of the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Pa­tri­cia Mejias says it will take about a week and a half to as­cer­tain the full ex­tent and cost of the dam­age caused by the flood­ing along the East-West Cor­ri­dor on "Man­ic Mon­day."

She al­so said man-made fac­tors con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the flood­ing.

Mejias, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Hazel Man­ning, Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Cheryl Black­man and en­gi­neers from the cor­po­ra­tion went out on the field yes­ter­day.

"Flood­ing is an act of God," Mejias said.

"I couldn't be­lieve the amount of wa­ter...It hap­pened in about 40 to 45 min­utes. The whole of the East­ern Main Road was flood­ed out, in­clud­ing all the busi­ness­es...There was a lot of dam­age."

Mean­while, mop­ping up op­er­a­tions are in full swing.

"We have be­gun wash­ing and clean­ing some peo­ples' homes and clear­ing the streets...Cepep is as­sist­ing and the field work­ers are do­ing as­sess­ment," Mejias said.

Most af­fect­ed ar­eas

She said Watts, Belle Smythe Streets and Jo­gie Trace in Curepe were com­plete­ly flood­ed.

At St Au­gus­tine, Dook­iesingh Street, Free­man Road and Riv­er Road were com­plete­ly cov­ered in slush and de­bris.

"The whole of Spring Vil­lage was in a bad way...The cars had to be towed away," Mejias said.

"Two ve­hi­cles blew up and burned to noth­ing in a St Au­gus­tine car park. Trees fell in­to the riv­er by Evans Street, Curepe. A house on Sesame Street was bad­ly dam­aged. Bridges and re­tain­ing walls fell down," Mejias said.

Yes­ter­day, the wa­ters had abat­ed but the slush re­mained. Spring Vil­lage bore tes­ti­mo­ny to na­ture's fury. "Mc In­roy Street was com­plete­ly flood­ed out," she said.

"Black­man Ravine goes straight in­to Spring Vil­lage. It over­flowed its banks. It spilled over those ar­eas."

Mejias said she was notic­ing a trend caused by dump­ing of dis­card­ed ma­te­r­i­al.

"I think if rain falls again it would hap­pen, be­cause of ac­tiv­i­ties like the cut­ting of the hill," she said.

"The burgess­es are dump­ing their garbage in the wa­ter­cours­es. Most of the prob­lems are man-made."

On June 8, Coun­cil­lor Khadi­jah Ameen-Ros­tant and a num­ber of res­i­dents had ap­pealed to the au­thor­i­ties to dredge Black­man Ravine be­fore the rains came.

The Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion has asked that cit­i­zens who have been af­fect­ed by flood­ing and need as­sis­tance to call the cor­po­ra­tion at 645-8772, 633-6750, 662-2261, 662-4139 or 662-1422.