Jean-Marc Ram­per­sad

Cli­mate Change Ed­i­tor

jean-marc.ram­per­sad@guardian.co.tt

Near­ly four hours of in­ter­mit­tent rain­fall over north-west­ern Trinidad caused flash flood­ing in sev­er­al ar­eas around the cap­i­tal.

Ac­cord­ing to the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM), south­ern parts of Port-of-Spain, in­clud­ing South Quay and In­de­pen­dence Square, were im­pass­able. Com­muters us­ing pub­lic trans­porta­tion faced lengthy de­lays, with many seek­ing tem­po­rary shel­ter and hav­ing to nav­i­gate flood­ed ar­eas around City Gate.

In Mar­aval, mul­ti­ple points along Sad­dle Road ex­pe­ri­enced pond­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Boissiere Vil­lage and near Mar­aval Plaza. Flood­ing was al­so re­port­ed in Wood­brook near the in­ter­sec­tions of Colville Street and Ari­api­ta Av­enue, as well as Wright­son Road near French Street and Fitt Street.

A pri­vate weath­er sta­tion in Wood­brook record­ed ap­prox­i­mate­ly 2.5 inch­es of rain­fall dur­ing the event, with a peak rain­fall in­ten­si­ty of 200 mil­lime­tres (eight inch­es) per hour—clas­si­fied as ‘ex­treme’ on most scales.

The ODPM al­so re­port­ed flood­ing along La­dy Young Road near the bridge by the Bel­mont Po­lice Sta­tion, fur­ther ex­ac­er­bat­ing traf­fic for those seek­ing al­ter­na­tive routes out of Port-of-Spain.

This marks the third oc­cur­rence of flash flood­ing in north-west­ern Trinidad this month. Al­though ar­eas fur­ther west, such as Diego Mar­tin, did not re­ceive the same in­ten­si­ty of rain­fall, a land­slip was re­port­ed on Union Road, dam­ag­ing a res­i­dent’s dri­ve­way. Con­sec­u­tive days of rain­fall in hilly ar­eas in­crease slope in­sta­bil­i­ty, rais­ing the risk of sim­i­lar in­ci­dents.

The Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture is­sued press re­leas­es iden­ti­fy­ing af­fect­ed ar­eas. Mo­torists were urged to avoid flood­ed and flood-prone zones and pri­or­i­tize safe­ty un­til con­di­tions im­prove. Res­i­dents were al­so en­cour­aged to con­tact their lo­cal Cor­po­ra­tion’s Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit via hot­line, as list­ed on of­fi­cial web­sites and so­cial me­dia pages.

The trend of af­ter­noon thun­der­storms is ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue for the re­main­der of the week. Heavy down­pours may trig­ger street and flash flood­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly in west­ern coastal ar­eas and oth­er ur­ban or low-ly­ing zones.

The T&T Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS) has up­dat­ed its Rain­fall and Tem­per­a­ture Out­look for Sep­tem­ber to No­vem­ber 2025, fore­cast­ing near-nor­mal rain­fall with mod­er­ate flood po­ten­tial and warmer-than-av­er­age days and nights. TTMS warned that sur­face wa­ter pond­ing could pro­mote mos­qui­to breed­ing, in­creas­ing the risk of vec­tor-borne dis­eases. Res­i­dents are ad­vised to pre­pare sand­bags and take pre­cau­tions to mit­i­gate the im­pacts of heavy rain­fall and high­er tem­per­a­tures.