CHARLES Kong SOO

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds has de­ployed mem­bers of the De­fence Force and its equip­ment to help the be­lea­guered re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions and cit­i­zens through­out the coun­try who have been se­vere­ly af­fect­ed by flood­wa­ters and land­slides.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence on Tues­day, Hinds said, “While the weath­er pat­terns seem to have im­proved and we had less rains to­day for the rea­sons al­ready stat­ed, the sit­u­a­tion be­came in some ways ex­ac­er­bat­ed, height­ened.”

“And as a con­se­quence of that, you will now see more en­gage­ment by the T&T De­fence Force (TTDF) be­cause as we in­di­cat­ed ear­li­er in these brief­in­gs, it is when the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions and the oth­er agen­cies be­come over­whelmed and un­able to treat with what is in front of them. Then, at the guid­ing hand based on the co­or­di­nat­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the ODPM of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, we will de­ploy our re­sources, and bring them to bear on the sit­u­a­tion.”

He added, “The De­fence Force pro­vid­ing sup­port on the re­quest from the HDC pro­vid­ed trans­port to­day for some of the res­i­dents of Re­al Spring, Val­sayn, which was par­tic­u­lar­ly hard hit.”

He said the TTDF de­ployed one troop car­ri­er and two wa­ter as­sets with op­er­a­tors from the T&T Coast Guard in sup­port of work and op­er­a­tions in the area.

Hinds said a troop car­ri­er was al­so de­ployed to Mafek­ing to as­sist per­son­nel from T&TEC who worked to re­store lost elec­tric­i­ty and pow­er in cer­tain in­un­dat­ed ar­eas.

He said two wa­ter as­sets were al­so de­ployed to the Bam­boo #2 area, as it was al­so se­vere­ly im­pact­ed by flood­wa­ters and the TTDF En­gi­neer­ing Bat­tal­ion was on stand­by in the high flood dan­ger zones of Bam­boo Set­tle­ment #1, 2 and 3.

Hinds com­mend­ed busi­ness­es, cit­i­zens, NGOs and Nanan’s Bird Sanc­tu­ary for help­ing strand­ed Bam­boo res­i­dents.

He said the Red Cross pro­vid­ed meals to Bam­boo res­i­dents, the TTPS pro­vid­ed pa­trols on the Beetham, cy­cle pa­trols along the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way, Uri­ah But­ler High­way, Cen­tral Mar­ket, Ca­roni over­pass and the Mar­itime Round­about to en­sure that traf­fic flowed.

How­ev­er, there was a mas­sive traf­fic pile-up for sev­er­al hours out of Port-of-Spain along the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way head­ing east and the Uri­ah But­ler High­way head­ing south af­ter po­lice of­fi­cers con­vert­ed three lanes in­to one lane near the Ca­roni Bird Sanc­tu­ary af­ter wa­ter pooled on part of the south­bound lane.