Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

South Trinidad was spared heavy flood­ing yes­ter­day, how­ev­er two mo­torists found them­selves in scary sit­u­a­tions af­ter they at­tempt­ed to dri­ve through flood­ed streets in Union Hall, San Fer­nan­do.

Fol­low­ing heavy show­ers that trig­gered an ad­verse weath­er Yel­low Alert, there were re­ports of flash flood­ing in Clax­ton Bay, Scott Street, San Fer­nan­do and Union Hall.

Ran­dall Sammah, a re­tired Pres­by­ter­ian min­is­ter, said he usu­al­ly dri­ves along Hazel­nut Av­enue every day to buy news­pa­pers, so he was not wor­ried about pass­ing along the flood­ed road.

Re­call­ing what hap­pened while he was on his way home, he said: “I saw what looked like tor­rents of wa­ter but I was fa­mil­iar with the road so I was go­ing slow­ly. What hap­pened the road gave way, so the front of the car sank. I did not pan­ic at first, I wait­ed, but then wa­ter start­ed to come in the ve­hi­cle.”

Sammah said he start­ed to pray.

“I say Lord you in charge. I wasn’t scared at first, but when wa­ter start­ed to come in the car I had all these vi­sions of what we see on TV.”

For­tu­nate­ly, a passer­by and a res­i­dent as­sist­ed him and the floods quick­ly re­ced­ed.

Sammah com­plained about the de­plorable state of the road.

“It’s ter­ri­ble,” he said.

An­oth­er mo­torist, Tom­my Thomas, drove from Ari­ma to as­sist his em­ploy­er whose had ve­hi­cle stalled, but found him­self in a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion.

Thomas said the wa­ter lev­el on the Gol­con­da Con­nec­tor Road in Union Hall seemed low and af­ter two ve­hi­cles drove through, he de­cid­ed to fol­low.

“But the wa­ter just swell very quick­ly. The ve­hi­cle cut off in the mid­dle (of the road), and the wa­ter swell al­most to in­side the ve­hi­cle. A cou­ple of trucks pass and when they pass they were just push­ing the ve­hi­cle left, right and cen­tre be­cause it was like the wa­ter was too much for the ve­hi­cle so it get light,” he re­called.

Thomas said the wa­ter re­ced­ed with­in 20 min­utes but his truck could not start. He ad­vised oth­er mo­torists to avoid flood­ed roads.

“Don’t pass through no wa­ter, no mat­ter how low. It was half the tire, with­in sec­onds it just rise up,” he said.

Of­fi­cials from re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions in Pe­nal/Debe, Siparia, Point Fortin, Princes Town and Ma­yaro/Rio Claro said they re­ceived no re­ports of flood­ing.

Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Dr Allen Sam­my said re­pairs to the Su­chit Trace bridge in Pe­nal have been com­pleed. He wants the au­thor­i­ties to com­plete in­fra­struc­ture work on the Solomon Ho­choy High­way Ex­ten­sion and open the new bridge that con­nects to Su­chit Trace.

“It can ac­com­mo­date more traf­fic, and it is safer” he said.