KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Jour­nal­ists trav­el­ling to the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion’s (PDRC) me­dia con­fer­ence on flood­ing yes­ter­day had to turn back, as mid-morn­ing rains brought wa­ter ris­ing out of sur­round­ing wa­ter­cours­es.PDRC chair­man Dr Allen Sam­my resched­uled the me­dia con­fer­ence for this morn­ing to speak about the cor­po­ra­tion’s lack of fund­ing to com­bat peren­ni­al flood­ing.There was traf­fic con­ges­tion along the SS Erin Road, as over­filled wa­ter­cours­es spilt in­to the area where pop­u­lar dou­bles ven­dors ply their trade, near­by busi­ness­es and the Fran­cis Se­u­paul Recre­ation Ground.

Road­side ven­dor Randy Doo­bree saw some of his pro­duce washed away.

Mo­torists try­ing to en­ter Debe turned around but those with SU­Vs, pick­ups and trucks bat­tled through. Sev­er­al mo­torists who were parked in the town area saw wa­ter en­ter their cars. Some res­i­dents wait­ed for a break in show­ers to wade through the wa­ters in their boots, while oth­ers rolled up their pants and re­moved their footwear or rode bi­cy­cles.
An­drew Fran­cis, a res­i­dent of Debe Trace, said flood­ing oc­curs any­time it rains for more than five min­utes. Fran­cis said he went to the PDRC sev­er­al times and made writ­ten com­plaints years ago, but it was over 20 years since it had cleaned the drains. He re­called the floods fol­low­ing the 2010 gen­er­al elec­tions, say­ing that Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal stood among the silt in his yard. De­spite a promise of help, he said noth­ing ever came.

“To date, not even a sweet­ie. Not a di­rec­tion from them. They gave you num­bers to call, no­body is an­swer­ing the num­bers. It is what the poor peo­ple end up hav­ing to deal with every time rain falls be­cause our cries fall on deaf ears. Peo­ple fed up,” Fran­cis said.
Nar­ine Chankar missed his flight to New York af­ter wa­ter en­tered the low­er sto­ry of his home. This left Rad­ha Har­riper­sad and her five chil­dren stuck in the front part of their home. Most of their house and yard was left un­der wa­ter.
PDRC chair­man Sam­my said it was a bad day for many busi­ness­es in that area, as they had to close ear­ly and spend the af­ter­noon wait­ing to clean up. Sam­my said there were floods through­out Pe­nal and Debe. While some of the wa­ter re­ced­ed around noon, he said high tide was ap­proach­ing and more rain­fall would ex­ac­er­bate the prob­lem.

“I know there were four re­ports, but that was more to the East­ern end of Pe­nal/Debe, and the wa­ter had not yet reached over the main road. But it was head­ing in that di­rec­tion,” Sam­my said.
He was wait­ing to see the im­pact of the wa­ter move­ment to­ward Wood­land. At mid-af­ter­noon, wa­ter gath­ered along Pluck Road. Wa­ter al­so ac­cu­mu­lat­ed on the Solomon Ho­choy High­way be­tween Gol­con­da and Debe, caus­ing traf­fic to merge in­to a sin­gle lane at some points. There was al­so a pick­up truck that skid­ded in­to the me­di­an, where wa­ter was ris­ing. How­ev­er, po­lice and a wreck­er were quick­ly on the scene.
While there was no ma­jor flood­ing in the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion ar­eas, chair­man Hen­ry Awong said ex­ist­ing land­slips con­tin­ue to wors­en. Awong said once the rain con­tin­ues, it could cause a to­tal col­lapse, block­ing off sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties from the rest of the coun­try.