OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Un­prece­dent­ed flood­ing brought mis­ery to dozens of fam­i­lies along Ack­bar Road, Char­lieville, as heavy rains in­un­dat­ed homes and dis­rupt­ed Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions across Cen­tral Trinidad.

Res­i­dents spent much of yes­ter­day clean­ing up af­ter near­ly two hours of tor­ren­tial rain­fall trig­gered flash flood­ing that left streets sub­merged and prop­er­ties dam­aged.

Coun­cil­lor for the area, Adri­an Ali, along with Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Ch­agua­nas West, Dr Col­in Go­sine, and Ch­agua­nas May­or, Faaiq Mo­hammed, were on the ground as­sess­ing the dam­age and meet­ing af­fect­ed res­i­dents.

“I’ve been on the ground since yes­ter­day (Sun­day) evening and again this morn­ing (Mon­day) with the MP and His Wor­ship, the May­or,” Coun­cil­lor Ali told Guardian Me­dia. “We’ve seen first­hand what the res­i­dents are fac­ing. It’s heart­break­ing to see what they’ve had to go through af­ter such an un­prece­dent­ed amount of rain­fall.”

He added that de­spite re­cent works in the area, the ex­ist­ing drainage sys­tem could not han­dle the vol­ume of wa­ter.

“We cleaned the en­tire wa­ter­way on Ack­bar Road in Ju­ly, yet we’re still see­ing that it can’t han­dle the ca­pac­i­ty of wa­ter dur­ing events like yes­ter­day. We’ve iden­ti­fied key ar­eas where in­fra­struc­ture up­grades are ur­gent­ly need­ed,” he said.

Among those hard­est hit was In­saf Ali, who said his fam­i­ly is work­ing tire­less­ly to clean up and re­store a sense of nor­mal­cy to their home and neigh­bour­hood to ob­serve Di­vali.

“Yes­ter­day (Sun­day), when the rain poured so hard, every­body got flood­ed. I live in the house just af­ter the ware­house, and up to now, I still have wa­ter in my home. My son and I had to raise the bed by about two to three bricks, and even now, there’s still wa­ter in­side,” Ali ex­plained.

Even a kinder­garten on Marchin Road was not spared, as flood­wa­ters swept through class­rooms on Sun­day.

“This is where I earn my in­come, and every time it floods, it af­fects my day­care,” said own­er Jen­ny Mooni­ram. “I’ve put sand­bags, but it’s still not help­ing — the wa­ter comes up so high. It’s been hap­pen­ing more of­ten now. I’ve lived here for 18 years, and this is the ninth time my home has been flood­ed.”

Res­i­dent Kevon Har­riper­sad blamed the flood­ing on the lack of main­te­nance of the drains along the high­way, which he said has now damp­ened his fam­i­ly’s plans for Di­vali.

“The wa­ter ris­es re­al­ly fast be­cause the drains aren’t be­ing prop­er­ly cleaned,” he ex­plained. “Be­fore, they used to clear the drains reg­u­lar­ly, but now, with­in an hour of heavy rain, they’re over­flow­ing. The drains un­der­neath are clogged, and by the cor­ner there, every­thing fills up quick­ly be­cause the area is low­er and the drainage on that side can’t han­dle the flow.”

Ch­agua­nas West Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, Dr Col­in Go­sine, fol­low­ing his as­sess­ment of the floods, said the road­way and ad­join­ing drains are show­ing signs of ero­sion due to the heavy flow of wa­ter. He em­pha­sised that a re­tain­ing wall along the af­fect­ed sec­tion would bring much-need­ed re­lief to the com­mu­ni­ty, help­ing sta­bilise the road and pre­vent fur­ther land slip­page.

The MP said he in­tends to raise the mat­ter with the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to ex­plore ur­gent re­me­di­al works in the area.