With the Ca­roni Riv­er still over­flow­ing its banks, hun­dreds of mo­torists ei­ther try­ing to get to north or south Trinidad re­main strand­ed on the Uri­ah But­ler High­way.

And while hun­dreds of Good Samar­i­tans have risked their own well­be­ing to take aid to flood vic­tims as tor­ren­tial rain and flood­ing con­tin­ues across Trinidad, dis­turb­ing sto­ries about wreck­er own­ers ex­ploit­ing those trapped have emerged.

Guardian Me­dia was told that as night ap­proached yes­ter­day and those strand­ed be­came more des­per­ate to get to their homes, wreck­er dri­vers charged mo­torists be­tween $500 to $1,500 to take their ve­hi­cles over the flood­ed part of the high­way be­tween the Ca­roni Bird Sanc­tu­ary and the Munroe Road Fly­over.

Those dri­vers des­per­ate enough paid the ex­or­bi­tant fees but many oth­ers wait­ed out the flood. Good Samar­i­tans were on the scene from around noon yes­ter­day giv­ing out food and bot­tled wa­ter to trapped mo­torists.

The south­bound lane of the high­way re­mains closed as it is still cov­ered in flood wa­ter. The north­bound lane of the high­way is be­ing used a dual car­riage­way with three lanes ded­i­cat­ed to those head­ing north, while one lane is be­ing used by those head­ing south. When the high tide came in at 2.29 pm to­day the wa­ter lev­el al­so be­gan to rise again. Cit­i­zens are be­ing urged to stay off the high­way un­less it is ab­solute­ly nec­es­sary.