Kalain Ho­sein

For the first time since 2018, up­wards of five feet of flood­wa­ters in­un­dat­ed sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties across the Ca­roni, North Oropouche and Ca­paro Riv­er Basins, prompt­ing mul­ti­ple high-wa­ter res­cues and evac­u­a­tions.

Over the last two days, sig­nif­i­cant rain­fall as­so­ci­at­ed with the pas­sage of a low-lev­el trough trig­gered wide­spread street, flash and river­ine flood­ing, land­slides, and fall­en trees, leav­ing no cor­ner of T&T un­touched.

Dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Faris Al-Rawi said they re­ceived re­ports of 67 sig­nif­i­cant flood­ing events, 106 land­slides and 31 fall­en trees, bring­ing the pre­lim­i­nary sig­nif­i­cant in­clement weath­er re­ports to 205.

How­ev­er, the ac­tu­al im­pact is much more sub­stan­tial. Over the week­end, near­ly every large riv­er over­topped or caused flood­ing in low-ly­ing ar­eas.

The St Joseph, Cipero, Aranguez, Ca­paro, North Oropouche, South Oropouche, Nar­i­va, Are­na, Guaracara, Mar­i­anne, Ca­roni and Gua­napo Rivers all over­topped, with sev­er­al small­er rivers and un­named streams across north­ern, cen­tral and south­ern Trinidad, as far south as Moru­ga, wreak­ing hav­oc on low-ly­ing com­mu­ni­ties.

Ma­jor floods hit Ca­paro; Mara­cas, St Joseph; Val­sayn (South and North); St Au­gus­tine; Biche; North Oropouche and Ve­ga De Oropouche, St He­le­na, and still un­fold­ing – Ca­roni. Flood­wa­ters ranged from two to ten feet, with some ar­eas on­ly ac­ces­si­ble by boat.

Mul­ti­ple evac­u­a­tions oc­curred in St He­le­na, in­clud­ing San­ta Mon­i­ca Trace, Con­stan­tine Trace, and Madras Road, as well as at Spring­land Av­enue, Val­sayn South and Biche, east­ern Trinidad. As of press time, 31 peo­ple were housed at dif­fer­ent shel­ters across Trinidad.

Ma­jor land­slides across Trinidad and To­ba­go left road­ways im­pass­able through­out the week­end, pre­vent­ing heavy equip­ment from reach­ing the blocked ar­eas. Matelot and Grande Riv­iere re­mained cut off from the re­main­der of Trinidad last evening, as a sig­nif­i­cant land­slide blocked the Paria Main Road, trap­ping two ve­hi­cles be­fore the mo­torists were res­cued. Sim­i­lar­ly, those ven­tur­ing on the North Coast Road and Blanchies­suse Road faced mul­ti­ple fall­en trees, caved-in roads and flash floods, cre­at­ing a per­ilous com­mute.

Recog­nis­ing the risk to pub­lic safe­ty, the Works Min­istry has closed six roads across Trinidad – a rel­a­tive­ly un­usu­al move, even dur­ing in­clement weath­er.

As to­day, the Man­zanil­la-Ma­yaro Road re­mains closed due to a land­slide near Or­toire, flood­ing on most of the road­way and be­tween mile-mark­ers 61 kilo­me­tres to 70 kilo­me­tres, ero­sion of the road­way at a lev­el not seen since 2014. Be­tween the La­dy Young walkover and the Hilton Trinidad, the La­dy Young Road re­mained closed for the sec­ond day yes­ter­day due to fall­en trees and land­slides.

Four oth­er roads were closed yes­ter­day – the South­ern Main Road be­tween UTT, Val­sayn and the Ca­roni Round­about on the Ca­roni South Bank Road, as the Ca­roni Riv­er and its trib­u­taries spilled over; the North Coast Road at the 18-kilo­me­tre mark near Zor­ro Road due to a ma­jor land­slide; the Bras­so Ca­paro Sta­tion Road, Gran Cou­va, near the 3.2-kilo­me­tre mark due to a land­slide; and the Cou­va Road, Gran Cou­va, near the 12.5-kilo­me­tre mark.

The im­pact­ful weath­er is not fin­ished just yet ei­ther. The T&T Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice up­grad­ed both the Ad­verse Weath­er Alert (for Trinidad and To­ba­go) and the River­ine Flood Alert (for ma­jor rivers of Trinidad) to Or­ange Lev­el.

This change in alert lev­el means that se­vere im­pacts are now ex­pect­ed.

The Met Of­fice said in their third up­date of the Ad­verse Weath­er Alert that the coun­try could be im­pact­ed by rain­fall greater than 25 mil­lime­tres, gusty winds ex­ceed­ing 55 KM/H, street/flash flood­ing, land­slides, and ag­i­tat­ed seas as rain­fall con­tin­ues in­to Mon­day.

The River­ine Flood Alert is in ef­fect for the Ca­roni Riv­er, the North Oropouche Riv­er, the Ca­paro Riv­er, the Nar­i­va Riv­er, the Navet Dam/Reser­voir, the Or­toire Riv­er, and the South Oropouche Riv­er. It went in­to ef­fect on Sat­ur­day and re­mains in ef­fect through to­day.

A No­vem­ber to Re­mem­ber

Oc­to­ber and No­vem­ber are no­to­ri­ous for sig­nif­i­cant flood events in T&T, mark­ing the sec­ondary peak of the lo­cal wet sea­son. For Trinidad, No­vem­ber is the fourth wettest month of the year, while it is the wettest for To­ba­go.

As of 2 pm yes­ter­day, the Met Of­fice had record­ed 434.1 mil­lime­tres of rain­fall at Pi­ar­co, just shy of the all-time No­vem­ber record of 442.9 mil­lime­tres with 72 hours to go. No­vem­ber 2022 has al­ready record­ed near­ly dou­ble the av­er­age No­vem­ber rain­fall at Pi­ar­co, which comes in at 222.9 mil­lime­tres based on the 1991-2020 av­er­age.

Re­gard­ing alerts, Trinidad has been un­der a River­ine Flood Alert for 12 of the 28 days of No­vem­ber and an Ad­verse Weath­er Alert for 10 days (so far). No­vem­ber 2022 is now the month with the high­est num­ber of days T&T has been un­der at least one alert since the mul­ti-haz­ard ear­ly warn­ing sys­tem was im­ple­ment­ed in 2018 by the T&T Met Ser­vice.