Six months af­ter dis­card­ing thou­sands of dol­lars’ worth of fur­ni­ture and house­hold items, 82-year-old David Matu­ra is brac­ing for an­oth­er year of se­vere flood­ing in Good­man Trace, Pe­nal.

Al­though Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen un­veiled an ur­gent flood mit­i­ga­tion plan this week, Matu­ra re­mains un­con­vinced that any­thing will be done in time. He not­ed the rainy sea­son had al­ready be­gun.

From Fri­day to Sun­day, T&T is ex­pect­ed to ex­pe­ri­ence cloudy, breezy weath­er with light to mod­er­ate show­ers due to ITCZ ac­tiv­i­ty. There is a medi­um chance of heav­ier show­ers or thun­der­storms, es­pe­cial­ly on Sat­ur­day, which may cause gusty winds and street flood­ing.

Ameen launched a na­tion­al flood mit­i­ga­tion cam­paign, em­pha­sis­ing proac­tive rather than re­ac­tive re­spons­es. She re­vealed that an en­tire ware­house of flood equip­ment had been left idle, while res­i­dents suf­fered and or­dered im­me­di­ate de­ploy­ment of re­sources to clean drains and wa­ter­cours­es in flood-prone ar­eas, in­clud­ing South Oropouche, Ca­roni, Ca­paro, Diego Mar­tin and Rio Claro.

How­ev­er, a vis­it by Guardian Me­dia to flood-prone Pe­nal com­mu­ni­ties yes­ter­day found many drains and rivers still clogged with garbage or over­grown with bush­es.

Matu­ra ac­knowl­edged the min­is­ter’s plan but said no of­fi­cials had yet vis­it­ed his area. He hopes his coun­cil­lor and Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (PDRC) rep­re­sen­ta­tives will meet with res­i­dents soon.

But he be­lieves clean­ing drains is not enough, as peo­ple con­tin­ue to back­fill their land and block wa­ter­cours­es. The wa­ter then finds new paths, like his home.

Matu­ra, who has been liv­ing there since 1994, said the yard was paved high­er, yet flood­wa­ters rose three to four feet last year. In Feb­ru­ary, he be­gan build­ing a con­crete wall, spend­ing $3,200 on blocks and need­ing 600 more, which was es­ti­mat­ed at $4,800. He said it was still in­com­plete, and he was not ready for the rainy sea­son.

“It may be more se­vere, be­cause a lot of peo­ple are do­ing the same thing I am do­ing. Who is not block­ing up, they keep build­ing up to what­ev­er road lev­el or high­er. They keep go­ing high­er. If you go in­side that trace, you will see the mas­sive fill­ing that peo­ple do,” Matu­ra said.

At Ra­ju Branch Trace, Ran­jit Singh said a sin­gle day of rain caus­es the Black­wa­ter Chan­nel to over­flow on­to the road and in­to homes. He blamed a near­by prop­er­ty own­er who di­vert­ed the chan­nel around his land, wors­en­ing last year’s floods. Al­though he made sev­er­al re­ports, he said no ac­tion was tak­en.

He added that while the PDRC cleans drains, it means lit­tle if the main chan­nel is not re­stored.

“The prob­lem is that di­ver­sion. That is the whole prob­lem there, and we will get more floods now than be­fore. We get three feet of wa­ter, some­times four. Right on top of the bridge here, some­times, you get a foot and a half,” Singh said.

Over at Clarke Road, Prem­nath Nages­sar—whose fam­i­ly was ma­rooned dur­ing last No­vem­ber’s flood—ex­pects more of the same this year. He said a riv­er near­by backs up in­to the road­side box drain and spills in­to their home. So far, he has seen no drainage work or PDRC rep­re­sen­ta­tives in his area, though they typ­i­cal­ly re­spond to com­plaints.

He wants au­thor­i­ties to iden­ti­fy the cause of the flood­ing so he can stay home and pro­tect his fam­i­ly’s be­long­ings.

Live­stock farm­ers are al­so af­fect­ed. Farm­ers in Temul Trace are of­ten forced to move chick­ens, sheep, a bi­son, and pets be­fore the flood­wa­ters rise. Many drains are ab­sent, and ex­ist­ing cul­verts are blocked with dirt and grass. A riv­er next to a pen­sion­er’s home was bare­ly vis­i­ble un­der over­growth.

Res­i­dent Bibi Mo­hammed said even light rain leads to flood­ing.

“I think the drainage is clogged. There is no prop­er drainage. There is sup­posed to be a tun­nel here so the wa­ter comes through and goes to the la­goon.”

Asked if she is pre­pared for the sea­son, Mo­hammed replied blunt­ly:

“No. There is noth­ing to pre­pare for. When the rain comes, I stay in­doors.”

PDRC chair­man Gow­tam Ma­haraj said the cor­po­ra­tion will be­gin flood mit­i­ga­tion works to­day. Al­though he be­lieves 2025 may bring more floods due to long-stand­ing is­sues, he ex­pressed op­ti­mism about Ameen’s ag­gres­sive and col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach.

He said clean­ing will be­gin in Bar­rack­pore with ex­ca­va­tors, trucks, and man­u­al labour­ers. The PDRC is col­lab­o­rat­ing with the Min­istries of Works and Agri­cul­ture to clean wa­ter­cours­es.

On con­cerns about il­le­gal di­ver­sions, Ma­haraj said the PDRC had ad­dressed some, and one mat­ter is be­fore the court. He agreed that many drains re­main un­cleaned, blam­ing a his­to­ry of poor main­te­nance by cen­tral agen­cies.