RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

With stormy weath­er loom­ing, dis­as­ter man­age­ment teams in South Trinidad have sprung in­to ac­tion, dis­trib­ut­ing hun­dreds of sand­bags in prepa­ra­tion for po­ten­tial flood­ing.

At the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, chair­man Gow­tam Ma­haraj an­nounced that flood shel­ters have been ac­ti­vat­ed in an­tic­i­pa­tion of the ap­proach­ing weath­er sys­tem.

He said over 700 sand­bags had al­ready been dis­trib­uted, and all equip­ment and ve­hi­cles had been thor­ough­ly in­spect­ed to en­sure flood-readi­ness.

“Those who need sand­bags can come to the Cor­po­ra­tion and get them,” he added.

Ma­haraj al­so said all coun­cil­lors were us­ing so­cial me­dia to dis­sem­i­nate in­for­ma­tion, en­abling res­i­dents to re­quest as­sis­tance if need­ed.

He said a con­tin­gency flood plan was al­so put in place to ad­dress sce­nar­ios where flood shel­ters might be­come in­ac­ces­si­ble.

“Some of the shel­ters, such as the Bar­rack­pore Re­gion­al Com­plex, can be un­reach­able and com­pro­mised if we ex­pe­ri­ence se­vere flood­ing in that area. There­fore, we’ve iden­ti­fied al­ter­na­tive lo­ca­tions which we will share once they are ac­ti­vat­ed,” Ma­haraj ex­plained.

For those need­ing im­me­di­ate help, Ma­haraj urged burgess­es to What­sApp the Chair­man at 492-6651.

“We will be out and about mon­i­tor­ing where the flood­ing is con­cen­trat­ed and we urge peo­ple to be safe,” Ma­haraj said.

Mean­while, at the Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion, May­or Dood­nath Mayrhoo re­port­ed that over 1,000 sand­bags were pre­pared, and dis­tri­b­u­tion teams were ac­tive­ly re­spond­ing to re­quests.

“Trucks went to Ves­signy and Grant Trace al­ready. We have sand­bags in stock and a truck is on stand­by. The DMU are pre­pared to re­spond to any in­ci­dent this week­end,” Mayrhoo said.

He ad­vised res­i­dents to stay vig­i­lant as heavy rains could re­sult in sig­nif­i­cant flood­ing.

“Take the nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions by pro­tect­ing their elec­tron­ic items and put valu­ables on high­er ground,” he said.

At the Cou­va/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, vice chair­man Hen­ry Awong dis­closed that ef­forts to clear drains and wa­ter­cours­es were on­go­ing in an­tic­i­pa­tion of the rains. He ad­vised res­i­dents to ex­er­cise cau­tion and en­sure prop­er arrange­ments were in place.

“Per­se­ver­ance and Lime­head res­i­dents can go to the stock­pile and get sand­bags,” he said. He called on the cen­tral gov­ern­ment to do more to mit­i­gate floods.

“We are not do­ing enough to min­imise flood­ing. Just clean­ing some wa­ter­cours­es is not suf­fi­cient. We have to look at places like Hol­land and see how they have dealt with flood­ing. Every year we ex­pe­ri­ence flood­ing, and all we do is have Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Units on stand­by and clear wa­ter­cours­es here and there, but this is not enough. We need a com­pre­hen­sive flood mit­i­ga­tion plan,” Awong said.

Chair­man of the Ma­yaro/Rio Claro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Ray­mond Co­zi­er, called on res­i­dents to be ready.

“Don’t wait un­til the last minute; stay alert, mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion, and as soon as the weath­er starts to wors­en, make sure to raise ap­pli­ances that may be af­fect­ed by flood­ing,” he said.

He al­so ad­vised that prop­er arrange­ments be placed for those need­ing spe­cial care.

“Look out for those who are phys­i­cal­ly chal­lenged and make arrange­ments to put them in safe ar­eas. Don’t make mis­takes and then have peo­ple risk their lives to come and save oth­ers. Pre­pare for even­tu­al­i­ties and don’t take any chances,” he warned.