Kalain Ho­sein

Trinidad and To­ba­go is brac­ing for more heavy rain­fall fol­low­ing a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive day of thun­der­storms on Tues­day.

Flood­ing be­gan ear­ly Tues­day morn­ing across the coun­try, af­fect­ing Ma­yaro, Guayagua­yare, Man­zanil­la, and Spey­side, To­ba­go. Heavy rain­fall forced the ear­ly dis­missal of the Spey­side High School, the Spey­side An­gli­can School, and the Lam­beau An­gli­can School due to flood­ing and roof leaks.

Ac­cord­ing to To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency’s (TEMA) Di­rec­tor Al­lan Stew­art, flood­ing at Spey­side High School prompt­ed a re­sponse from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice and the Di­vi­sion of In­fra­struc­ture, Quar­ries, and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment.

TEMA al­so re­spond­ed to an in­ci­dent in­volv­ing two docked fish­ing ves­sels that en­coun­tered dif­fi­cul­ties due to the in­clement weath­er where one boat sank while the oth­er was pulled to shore.

Ad­di­tion­al thun­der­storms de­vel­oped across Trinidad dur­ing the late morn­ing, af­fect­ing north­ern and north­west­ern ar­eas, which caused sig­nif­i­cant street flood­ing across Port-of-Spain.

Ac­cord­ing to the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment, flood­ing was re­port­ed along Wright­son Road, in the vicin­i­ty of the cor­ner of French Street, Tra­garete Road, near Eliz­a­beth, Colville, Vic­to­ria, and Pic­ton Streets, St. Ann’s Round­about, and Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah in the vicin­i­ty La­dy Chan­cel­lor.

Traf­fic was grid­locked across var­i­ous ar­eas of Port of Spain, with both the West­ern Main Road and Beetham High­way see­ing sig­nif­i­cant traf­fic de­lays on Tues­day af­ter­noon.

Flood­ing al­so ex­tend­ed to Chow Quan Av­enue in Diego Mar­tin, La Sei­va Road in Mar­aval, and var­i­ous ar­eas of Sad­dle Road.

While the sun­shine briefly re­turned late af­ter­noon, more thun­der­storms de­vel­oped across south­west­ern Trinidad near sun­set, caus­ing floods along Grants Trace, Rousil­lac, and caused a tree to fall along Fyz­abad Guapo Road, par­tial­ly block­ing one lane.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice is­sued an Ad­verse Weath­er Alert (Yel­low Lev­el) at mid­day Tues­day for both is­lands, hours af­ter the floods be­gan across the coun­try.

The alert is in ef­fect un­til 6 pm Wednes­day as a trough sys­tem with favourable at­mos­pher­ic con­di­tions re­sults in a high chance of heavy show­ers and thun­der­storms.

Ac­cord­ing to the TTMS, “These con­di­tions are ex­pect­ed to per­sist in­ter­mit­tent­ly over the pe­ri­od, with a few set­tled pe­ri­ods ac­com­pa­nied by light rain. Heavy down­pours can lead to the threat of iso­lat­ed flash flood­ing events that may cause tem­po­rary traf­fic dis­rup­tions. Gusty winds may be ex­pe­ri­enced in the vicin­i­ty of heavy down­pours.” They ad­vise the pub­lic to be alert to cloud-to-ground light­ning ac­tiv­i­ty, not ven­ture in­to flood­wa­ters, and to mon­i­tor weath­er con­di­tions and up­dates from of­fi­cial sources.