KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

While T&T con­tin­ues to as­sist its hur­ri­cane rav­aged Caribbean neigh­bours, a call is be­ing made for Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan to tend to their peo­ple first.

Pe­nal coun­cil­lor Shan­ty Boodram said since Trop­i­cal Storm Bret dev­as­tat­ed the burgess­es of the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (PDRC) last June, they are still beg­ging for equip­ment to con­duct the nec­es­sary flood mit­i­ga­tion works.

Yes­ter­day morn­ing’s rain in south Trinidad was just an out­er band of Hur­ri­cane Maria, which dev­as­tat­ed the Lee­ward Is­lands. Sev­er­al parts of Pe­nal, Siparia and Ce­dros were flood­ed.

Preg­nant moth­er Ram­ra­jie Chance and her five chil­dren, who were left strand­ed in their homes in the af­ter­math of Trop­i­cal Storm Bret, suf­fered the same fate yes­ter­day.

Chance’s home at the edge of the la­goon along Sun­rees Road was 12 inch­es above the mau­by-coloured wa­ter. Blocked from at­tend­ing school, her chil­dren sat near the stairs point­ing to the lilies where they saw a snake and two caiman’s ear­li­er. Chance’s hus­band, Sameer Ali,said he could not risk go­ing in­to the wa­ter, show­ing a cut on his foot he suf­fered yes­ter­day. The wa­ter has al­so flood­ed their out­house, mak­ing it es­pe­cial­ly dan­ger­ous for the chil­dren to en­ter.

Boodram said since 2.30 am she was get­ting calls from af­fect­ed res­i­dents and by noon, there were at least 20 house­holds dam­aged in here elec­toral dis­trict. She said school sup­plies, fur­ni­ture and ap­pli­ances were dam­aged. She said that fol­low­ing TS Bret, Gov­ern­ment promised to pro­vide the PDRC with an ex­ca­va­tor to clear wa­ter­cours­es but no equip­ment ever came.

“I am call­ing on the Min­is­ter of Works and the Prime Min­is­ter to­day. You are help­ing your neigh­bour­ing coun­tries. I see the dis­as­ter and I’m plead­ing for those peo­ple. But we have peo­ple here too who are plead­ing with you to come and help res­i­dents,” Boodram said.

PDRC chair­man Dr Allen Sam­my added that a ma­jor con­trib­u­tor to the floods was the il­le­gal fill­ing of land and wa­ter­course, which has to be dealt with. He said should a storm or hur­ri­cane hit T&T; his re­gion could suf­fer loss of life, live­stock and prop­er­ty.

In Bonasse Vil­lage, Ce­dros, at least 20 hous­es were flood­ed near a NID­CO project site to re­pair a flood­gate lead­ing to the sea. Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Dr Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh said mat­tress­es and tar­pau­lins were pro­vid­ed to the af­fect­ed fam­i­lies and they were mak­ing arrange­ments to pur­chase clean­ing sup­plies. Erin res­i­dents ex­pe­ri­enced floods as well, but by mid­day, most of the wa­ter had re­ced­ed.