Sto­ries by

Sascha Wil­son

Hun­dreds of res­i­dents in the Pe­nal area were af­fect­ed with at least two fam­i­lies be­ing eval­u­at­ed af­ter wide­spread flood­ing in sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties.

With more rain ex­pect­ed, cou­pled with the run-off from oth­er ar­eas and high tide, res­i­dents and of­fi­cials are brac­ing for more flood­ing to­day.

The Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment is­sued an alert on Face­book ad­vis­ing that the Pe­nal Rock Road near the Pe­nal Rock Hin­du School to Good­man Trace were im­pas­si­ble to cars and low vans. The health cen­tre was al­so closed due to ris­ing flood wa­ters.

How­ev­er, Pe­nal Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Dr Allen Sam­my said there sev­er­al ar­eas were im­pas­si­ble even by high ve­hi­cles, leav­ing sev­er­al res­i­dents ma­rooned.

Sam­my said, “A lot of peo­ple are liv­ing un­der se­vere stress tonight. A few peo­ple said the flood­ing was the worst they and seen in sev­er­al years, we are tak­ing go­ing back to Hur­ri­cane Bret.”

Flood waters cover the graves at the Penal Rock Road Public Cemetery, leaving only the head stones visible, after heavy rains yesterday.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

He said the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit is wait­ing for the wa­ter to sub­side to go in­to the com­mu­ni­ties to do their as­sess­ments.

He was ad­vised that two fam­i­lies as­sist­ed in the evac­u­a­tion of two fam­i­lies in the Rochard Road, Sat­nar­ine Trace af­ter floods rose to high lev­els at their res­i­dences.

While the rain stopped in Pe­nal, he said show­ers con­tin­ued to fall in Princes Town and oth­er ar­eas.

“As a re­sult, the Cu­ra­ma­ta Riv­er which is ba­si­cal­ly fed by the South­ern range has over­flown its banks in sev­er­al ar­eas. Many hous­es have been in­vad­ed by wa­ter, in spite of sand­bags, he added.

While the cor­po­ra­tion had not re­ceived any ur­gent calls for evac­u­a­tion up to 8.30 pm, he said their emer­gency re­sponse team in­clud­ing their two dingy op­er­a­tors are on alert. Res­i­dents are be­ing ad­vised to call the cor­po­ra­tion at 800 - PDRC (7372) if they need as­sis­tance.