JEAN-MARC RAM­PER­SAD

Cli­mate Change Ed­i­tor

jean-marc.ram­per­sad@guardian.co.tt

Mo­torists and com­muters yes­ter­day spent as many as four hours in grid­lock traf­fic in and around the cap­i­tal city, af­ter heavy rains led to flood­ing which left sev­er­al main streets like Wright­son Road and In­de­pen­dence Square un­der three feet of wa­ter.

Com­mutes, which usu­al­ly take around ten min­utes, were in­flat­ed to two, three and as much as four hours to get to and out of the city.

The tor­ren­tial rain­fall was the re­sult of a Yel­low Lev­el Ad­verse Weath­er Alert is­sued by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS) which went in­to ef­fect at 11.15 yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Thun­der­storms de­vel­oped short­ly af­ter, with wa­ter ris­ing rapid­ly in some of the ur­ban ar­eas. By 2 pm, the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM) re­port­ed flood­ing in sev­er­al ar­eas of Port-of-Spain, Wood­brook, San Fer­nan­do and Pe­nal/Debe.

Cars parked in Port-of-Spain and en­vi­rons were par­tial­ly sub­merged in sev­er­al feet of wa­ter in ar­eas such as Sackville, Rich­mond and Ed­ward streets. Sim­i­lar­ly, ar­eas in south Trinidad, such as Union Hall and Pleas­antville, were im­pass­able for most ve­hi­cles.

The TTMS sub­se­quent­ly up­dat­ed the alert to ac­knowl­edge the on­go­ing flood­ing, as well as re­duced the area to the west­ern part of Trinidad and the Gulf of Paria.

Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen urged mo­torists not to dri­ve through flood­ed ar­eas. The min­is­ter al­so con­firmed the Cipero Riv­er had burst its banks in a few ar­eas and that there would be in­ter-min­is­te­r­i­al col­lab­o­ra­tion to re­store the ma­te­r­i­al that was washed away.

Ameen ex­plained that there were oth­er un­der­ly­ing is­sues to ad­dress the flood­ing prob­lem, not just the clear­ing of wa­ter­cours­es, but the re­pair and main­te­nance of river­banks and re­ten­tion ponds.

The min­is­ter said, “This al­so in­cludes plan­ning poli­cies, es­pe­cial­ly where the hill­sides are con­cerned.”

By 4 pm, the rain­fall be­gan to ease in north­west­ern Trinidad, and with low tide around 5 pm, flood­wa­ters quick­ly re­ced­ed in most ar­eas as well.

The TTMS dis­con­tin­ued the alert at 4.46 pm as the threat of im­pact­ful weath­er had sig­nif­i­cant­ly de­creased.

But the traf­fic sit­u­a­tion around the cap­i­tal city showed no signs of abat­ing, as chil­dren tried to make their way home af­ter the school day end­ed, along with work­ers try­ing to make their way home, re­sult­ing in a traf­fic night­mare that per­sist­ed well af­ter 6 pm.

Mean­while, the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture said it is step­ping up drainage works na­tion­wide, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Port-of-Spain, which con­tin­ues to face wors­en­ing flood­ing caused by clogged wa­ter­ways, age­ing in­fra­struc­ture, and tidal ac­tion.

Of­fi­cials said high tide slowed the out­flow of wa­ter from the cap­i­tal, while garbage added fur­ther pres­sure on the city’s drainage sys­tem. Dur­ing clean­ing ex­er­cis­es ear­li­er this year, the min­istry said crews re­moved plas­tics, met­al drums and house­hold de­bris from the drains.

The min­istry con­firmed that the pump sta­tions at Sea Lots and South Quay were ful­ly op­er­a­tional and con­tin­ue to play a key role in re­duc­ing flood lev­els in the cen­tral busi­ness dis­trict.

Na­tion­wide, the Works Min­istry said it is pur­su­ing long-term mea­sures un­der its Strate­gic Drainage Plan, in­clud­ing re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of the Ca­roni Riv­er, clear­ing of riv­er mouths, and up­grades to pumps and flood­gates across the coun­try.