RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Gusty winds ripped off gal­vanised sheets from sev­er­al homes, felled trees, and pulled down elec­tric­i­ty lines in parts of Pe­nal, Fyz­abad, Ce­dros, and Siparia just af­ter mid­day yes­ter­day.

Among the ar­eas af­fect­ed were Seemu­n­gal Trace, Pe­nal; In­cin­er­a­tor Road, Fyz­abad; Par­tap Trace, South Oropouche; Are­na Vil­lage, Erin; St Marie Vil­lage, Ce­dros; Senon Vil­lage, Pe­nal; and the Pe­nal Quinam Road.

Up un­til late yes­ter­day, Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit teams from the Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion, led by Dood­nath Mayrhoo and Chair­man of the Pe­nal Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Gow­tam Ma­haraj, were as­sess­ing the af­fect­ed re­gion. 

At Seemu­n­gal Trace Ex­ten­sion, Sal­ly Ghan­sham and her fam­i­ly were seen erect­ing a tar­pau­lin over their wood­en home. Ghan­sham said she was at home when she heard a rum­bling sound.

“When I went to the back, I saw the gal­vanise had blown off. The rain was falling hard, and all the mat­tress­es got wet. My phone start­ed to get wet too, and then my neigh­bours start­ed to call to see if we were OK,” Ghan­sham re­called. 

Her neigh­bours, Prakie Har­riper­sad and his sons, Ma­hen­dra and Deep­ak, quick­ly came to their res­cue and be­gan se­cur­ing the drenched items. Ghan­sham said all her daugh­ter’s books were soaked.

Mean­while, Na­dine Ed­wards of Quinam and Amardeo Bho­doe of Fyz­abad Branch Road al­so sus­tained dam­age to their homes. 

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Chair­man Ma­haraj said mat­tress­es, food items, and tar­pau­lins were dis­trib­uted to the af­fect­ed res­i­dents.

“We al­so had a re­port of roof dam­age at Ghan­di Vil­lage, and we had to at­tend to a re­port of a fall­en tree at Mo­hess Road,” Ma­haraj said. 

He not­ed that parts of Fyz­abad, Ce­dros, and Quinam al­so re­port­ed homes be­ing dam­aged. 

“We will as­sess and then ad­vise on fur­ther so­lu­tions. For now, we will bring im­me­di­ate re­lief to al­low a tem­po­rary fix for the fam­i­lies to at least stay in their homes tonight,” Ma­haraj said.

Mean­while, Mayrhoo said sev­er­al parts of the south­west­ern penin­su­la were hit by what ap­peared to be a freak storm. 

“In Pa­lo Seco, a few roofs blew off, a light pole fell, and sim­i­lar­ly in the Erin dis­trict, an­oth­er pole fell. In Siparia West/Fyz­abad, which was hard­est hit, sev­er­al roofs blew off. A tree fell on a car,” he re­vealed. 

“In the Ota­heite/Rousil­lac Dis­trict, a cou­ple of roofs were blown off. In Brighton/Ves­signy, we al­so had dam­age to some roofs. In Ce­dros, the Deputy May­or Shankar Teelucks­ingh al­so re­vealed se­ri­ous dam­ages were done in that area as well.” 

He said T&TEC had been no­ti­fied and was on the scene. The DMU is al­so dis­trib­ut­ing sup­plies to peo­ple, Mayrhoo added. He said as­sess­ments would be sub­mit­ted for fur­ther gov­ern­ment as­sis­tance on Mon­day. 

Met Of­fice warns of con­tin­ued high winds and rain

The Met Of­fice is warn­ing that there will be high winds again to­day, along with a chance of more rain. 

The sud­den down­pour caused flash flood­ing in Port-of-Spain, with parts of South Quay un­der wa­ter, which quick­ly sub­sided. 

Gusty winds tore off roofs in parts of south Trinidad as well.  

Ac­cord­ing to the Met Of­fice, the weath­er con­di­tions la­belled a “freak storm” by some will con­tin­ue to­day with light to mod­er­ate show­ers in a few ar­eas.

“There is a low to medi­um (30 per cent to 40 per cent) chance some of these show­ers could be­come heavy and/or thun­dery, main­ly over south­ern ar­eas. Gusty winds and street flood­ing may oc­cur in or near heavy show­ers.”