Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly & Nadaleen Singh

T&T is not un­der a trop­i­cal storm threat, watch or warn­ing. This as­sur­ance came from the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM) af­ter ar­eas in north-west, west and south Trinidad ex­pe­ri­enced heavy rain­fall for al­most an hour yes­ter­day.

The ODPM in state­ment said ar­eas af­fect­ed by flood­ing in­clud­ed South Quay in Port-of-Spain, Mor­vant Junc­tion, Movi­eTowne/Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um and on the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route, ex­it­ing Port-of-Spain. There were al­so re­ports of land­slides in Mor­vant and along the North Coast Road. Cal­i­for­nia and La Ro­maine, in cen­tral and south Trinidad, re­spec­tive­ly, were al­so af­fect­ed.

The Met Of­fice said the flood­ing, caused by a thun­der­show­er, sub­sided with­in an hour. The ground floor of the Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs at South Quay was hit by the heavy rains, caus­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic and staff to be evac­u­at­ed. Fire of­fi­cers al­so as­sist­ed in trans­port­ing strand­ed peo­ple to City Gate, Port-of-Spain. Chief dis­as­ter man­age­ment co-or­di­na­tor in the Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, Col Dave Williams, said peo­ple over­re­act­ed dur­ing heavy rain­fall. The heavy down­pour caused chaos in Port-of-Spain, as mo­torists and pedes­tri­ans were stuck in traf­fic.

Williams said the down­pour was not se­vere, but left "a lot of wa­ter on the streets." He said the dis­as­ter man­age­ment units of the Port-of-Spain, San Fer­nan­do, Cou­va/Tabaquite and San Juan/Laven­tille Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tions were as­sess­ing the im­pact. Williams said cer­tain places in San­gre Grande and Ch­agua­nas which were nev­er af­fect­ed were al­so flood­ed. He said each mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tion was equipped with a dis­as­ter man­age­ment staff. "All the units have field of­fi­cers who will as­sess and de­ter­mine what is need­ed to al­le­vi­ate the sit­u­a­tion and mo­bilise the re­sources deemed nec­es­sary," Williams said.

Dredge ma­jor wa­ter cours­es says Do­ma

Pres­i­dent of the Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion, Gre­go­ry Aboud, has called on the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port to im­me­di­ate­ly dredge ma­jor wa­ter cours­es. "We need to be cog­nisant that dis­as­trous con­se­quences await us from a trop­i­cal storm, if a strong af­ter­noon show­er is such a bur­den for our drainage sys­tem," he said. He de­scribed yes­ter­day's down­pour as "the most in­tense rain­fall" that the coun­try had wit­nessed in al­most a decade. Mean­while, res­i­dents in West­moor­ings, Co­corite, Pe­tit Val­ley, Diego Mar­tin and Ch­aguara­mas ex­pe­ri­enced a 40-minute dis­rup­tion in their elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply be­cause of yes­ter­day's in­clement weath­er. Pow­er, how­ev­er, was re­stored short­ly af­ter. In a state­ment, T&TEC said the dis­rup­tion was due to heavy light­ning, which caused the West­moor­ings sub-sta­tion to be tem­porar­i­ly "de-en­er­gised."

Le­gal Af­fairs Min­istry clos­es to­day

As a re­sult of yes­ter­day's flood­ing, the Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs will be closed to­day to fa­cil­i­tate a clean-up ex­er­cise.

The pub­lic will be un­able to ap­ply for birth, mar­riage and oth­er cer­tifi­cates which are processed on the ground floor.

The Com­pa­nies Reg­istry, how­ev­er, which op­er­ates out of the first floor, will be open for busi­ness.