KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Frus­trat­ed and hun­gry af­ter five days of be­ing trapped in their homes, some res­i­dents of Cedar Grove, Ma­yaro, risked their lives yes­ter­day, wad­ing through flood wa­ters from the swollen Otoire Riv­er in search of food and med­i­cine.

While ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20 peo­ple were able to suc­cess­ful­ly nav­i­gate the chest high wa­ter, more than 200 res­i­dents, in­clud­ing a sick ba­by in dire need of med­ical at­ten­tion, re­mained trapped in the vil­lage yes­ter­day.

A doc­tor, who came to the out­skirts of the vil­lage, said she want­ed to check on the ba­by who re­quires a spe­cial tube. She said if the tube was not changed soon, the in­fant could de­vel­op an in­fec­tion.

Vil­lagers said wa­ter be­gan in­vad­ing their homes since Thurs­day evening, dis­con­nect­ing them from the rest of the com­mu­ni­ty.

They said they have been with­out food, gas and drink­ing wa­ter.

A Kiss Bak­ing Com­pa­ny truck that was trapped in the area was opened and the vil­lagers took bread.

First re­spon­ders have been un­able to en­ter the area as their ve­hi­cles can’t with­stand the strong cur­rents in the swollen riv­er.

“My whole house flood out,” said Bev­er­ley Per­sad, who walked through the wa­ter ac­com­pa­nied by a boy and a man. She said they had to walk through bush­es where the wa­ter reached their shoul­ders.

“I live at the end of New Trace Junc­tion be­fore the sawmill. Every­thing is flood­ed out. I lost my ma­te­r­i­al, my wash­ing ma­chine, my sev­en chick­ens and my dog. I lost every­thing.

“Right now, the prob­lem is that we have no gro­ceries in our hous­es. Some of us don’t have gas to cook.

“We reached out here be­cause we saw that things were be­ing giv­en out, but we re­al­ly need help,” Per­sad said.

She said dry food, di­a­pers and med­i­cine, in­clud­ing painkillers and antacids, are des­per­ate­ly need­ed.

Some of her neigh­bours have fall­en ill and bedrid­den el­der­ly peo­ple are among the strand­ed vil­lagers.

The wa­ter is un­safe to walk through as cesspits and out­hous­es have been flood­ed out. Per­sad said the area can on­ly be ac­cessed by boats.

At Syl­van Hill, the wa­ter is too deep to walk through. One woman who at­tempt­ed to come out of her house when she heard med­ical sup­plies were com­ing was left strand­ed when the boat she was in got stuck.

She said flood­ing was a com­mon oc­curence in the area and so­cial ser­vices had nev­er been suf­fi­cient to re­cov­er any of her loss­es.

She said re­cov­ery would be par­tic­u­lar­ly hard as she was a sin­gle par­ent and the Cepep pro­gramme in which she was em­ployed was can­celled. 

Chair­man of the Rio Claro-Ma­yaro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Glen Ram said ef­forts were be­ing made to get Army and Coast Guard per­son­nel to as­sist in tak­ing emer­gency sup­plies in­to the com­mu­ni­ty.

“At this time, we at the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion can­not get in there. We have sup­plies to bring in terms and wa­ter and food.

“I’m now hear­ing about the num­ber of per­sons who are ill in here, so I will make arrange­ments with the Ma­yaro hos­pi­tal to get the med­i­cine,” he said.

By mid-af­ter­noon, rain had re­turned to com­pound the res­i­dents’ woes. With­out as­sis­tance and de­spite be­ing afraid, they had to wade through the flood wa­ters to re­turn to their homes.