Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Wide­spread flood­ing wreaked hav­oc in sev­er­al ar­eas in South Trinidad yes­ter­day.

Over six fam­i­lies were res­cued, hun­dreds more were ma­rooned and busi­ness­es and schools were forced to close as flood­wa­ters rose in some ar­eas dur­ing the day.

While there were no re­ports of in­juries, sev­er­al res­i­dents were un­able to re­turn to their homes last night and many were count­ing their loss­es af­ter flood­wa­ters gushed in­to their homes.

Fol­low­ing two days of tor­ren­tial show­ers, the River­ine Flood Alert for South Trinidad was up­grad­ed to Or­ange Lev­el as al­most all the rivers, in­clud­ing the South Oropouche Riv­er, burst their banks in com­mu­ni­ties with­in Bar­rack­pore, Debe, Pe­nal and Wood­land.

Among those who were trapped in flood­wa­ters were two WASA em­ploy­ees con­duct­ing wa­ter sam­ple col­lec­tion at Raghu­nanan Trace in Pe­nal. They were as­sist­ed by a Pe­nal Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion crew who used a dinghy to take them to dry land.

Many res­i­dents in af­fect­ed ar­eas com­plained that they were caught off guard, as there was no warn­ing of the lev­el of flood­ing from of­fi­cial sites and they were left scram­bling to put fur­ni­ture and ap­pli­ances on a Jen­ny Har­ri­lal, own­er of Jen­ny’s Bar and Roti Shop, had to close her busi­ness at Su­chit Trace in Debe.

“There was no weath­er re­port. We just see the rain falling and last night (Sun­day night) was wa­ter. Re­mem­ber, we in­vest­ing mon­ey here and is two, three, four days you have to close up. We have work­ers, it is dif­fi­cult for us,” she lament­ed.

Send­ing a mes­sage to the au­thor­i­ties, Har­ri­lal said, “Clean the rivers, clean the drains, do what­ev­er it takes.” With sev­er­al roads im­pass­able to small ve­hi­cles, res­i­dents could not go to work and chil­dren could not at­tend school.

“From yes­ter­day (Sun­day), is flood right through, them chil­dren can­not go to school this morn­ing. No chil­dren no­body can reach to the school,” said Bar­rack­pore res­i­dent Bis­soon­dath Bas­deo, who kept his nine-year-old grand­son at home.

Kiss Bak­ery sales­man Sandesh Seep­aul was on his way to de­liv­er goods in Bar­rack­pore but de­cid­ed against dri­ving through the flood-rav­aged GP Road com­mu­ni­ty. “I will be turn­ing around and go­ing back to the of­fice,” he said.

Mean­while, crews from the Pe­nal/Debe and Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tions were on the ground as­sist­ing res­i­dents with sand­bags and mat­tress­es.

Fifth Com­pa­ny coun­cil­lor Rafi Mo­hammed, who toured af­fect­ed ar­eas in Bar­rack­pore on a trac­tor, lament­ed, “I want to make a plea to the agen­cies to come in­to Bar­rack­pore as soon as pos­si­ble to bring re­lief.”

Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Dr Allen Sam­my said it was the worst flood­ing they had seen since 2017.

“It is the worst as more ar­eas are flood­ed. It is flood­ed deep­er than it would nor­mal­ly be flood­ed and it is still very ear­ly in the rainy sea­son,” he said.

While Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan said the min­istry had em­barked on an ag­gres­sive de­silt­ing of ma­jor rivers and drains, Oropouche West MP Dave Tan­coo placed the blame square­ly on the min­istry’s shoul­ders.

“If they had put banks on the rivers like we have been beg­ging the Min­is­ter of Works to do, if he had done a prop­er job of clear­ing wa­ter cours­es et cetera, this would not have been as bad,” Tan­coo claimed.

Emer­gency shel­ters were ac­ti­vat­ed at the Bar­rack­pore Re­gion­al Com­plex, Wood­land Hin­du School and Es­per­ance Re­gion­al Com­plex.

Mean­while, a La Brea fam­i­ly of five, in­clud­ing three chil­dren, were left home­less af­ter a fire de­stroyed their home. Kevon George was not at home but said his wife told him that the fire oc­curred short­ly af­ter a bolt of light­ning struck. He, his wife and chil­dren, ages four, sev­en and 16, are now stay­ing at a church in Point Fortin. Any­one will­ing to as­sist can con­tact them at 372-7085.