Two weeks af­ter the en­tire com­mu­ni­ty of Mt Lam­bert South was flood­ed when the San Juan Riv­er over­spilled its banks, scores of res­i­dents are yet to move in­to their homes.

The dis­as­ter which struck the com­mu­ni­ty is sim­i­lar to events which oc­curred at Green­vale, in La Hor­quet­ta South last Oc­to­ber.

But the re­sponse from Gov­ern­ment agen­cies has been lax. The res­i­dents said they were grate­ful for the help of­fered by the NGO Habi­tat for Hu­man­i­ty, and the po­lit­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tives for the area.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the area to get a first-hand view of the dev­as­ta­tion — some were linked to man-made ob­struc­tions while oth­ers were linked to clogged drains and poor in­fra­stuc­tur­al plan­ning.

In one in­stance, a farmer dug deep in­to the riv­er bank to lay four-inch PVC pipes to chan­nel wa­ter for his farm.

With the riv­er at full ca­pac­i­ty on Sep­tem­ber 22, the pres­sure sliced through the open­ing and wa­ter gushed in­to the homes of res­i­dents, in some in­stances through their win­dows.

Af­ter the flood, the farmer filled the 25-foot trench and tried to cov­er the pipe.

At Sa­van­nah Dri­ve, one of the hard­est-hit ar­eas, res­i­dents lost every­thing.

Last Oc­to­ber, they were among the thou­sands of cit­i­zens across the coun­try who were af­fect­ed by record flood­ing and some of them are still re­cov­er­ing from that dis­as­ter.

Ralph Humphrey re­called he had just eat­en lunch when his wife alert­ed him that the riv­er was about to breach its bank.

“We had to run for our lives. We lost every­thing. No one has come to help us,” Humphrey, a taxi-dri­ver, told Guardian Me­dia.

He said he was tak­ing it one day at a time and in the in­ter­im was grate­ful for a tem­po­rary shel­ter for his fam­i­ly of four at a rel­a­tive’s home.

Close to 800 peo­ple were di­rect­ly af­fect­ed and ac­cord­ing to the lo­cal gov­ern­ment coun­cil­lor for the dis­trict, Amit Sook­nanan more need­ed to be done ur­gent­ly to re­store the com­mu­ni­ty.

Sook­nanan said he had made sev­er­al re­ports at the coun­cil meet­ing of the San Juan/Laven­tille Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion to help clear the clogged drains but not­ed that all of the nine back­hoes there were not work­ing.

Ashad Mo­hammed, who op­er­ates an au­to shop at Sa­van­nah Dri­ve was one of the few who es­caped the wrath of the flood.

He along with sev­er­al oth­er res­i­dents took Guardian Me­dia on a tour of the dis­trict.

He point­ed to the miss­ing flood gates to the ravine lead­ing from Bermudez bis­cuit fac­to­ry and tyres and even a tree trapped in the open­ing. He plead­ed with au­thor­i­ties to re­pair the flood gates as he be­lieves that this could help al­le­vi­ate the flood­ing in the dis­trict.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Amer Baldeo, said the force of the wa­ter at one bend was so strong it was erod­ing the bank and soon a bam­boo clump can slip in­to the chan­nel and leave his home vul­ner­a­ble.

There are sev­er­al mul­ti-storey apart­ment com­plex­es to the east, busi­ness­es to the south, and acres of farm­land where pro­duce such cel­ery, let­tuce, and morai were seen re­cov­er­ing from the slush.

Raw sewage was seen flow­ing di­rect­ly in­to an open drain in front one of the apart­ment com­plex­es which hous­es 16 sep­a­rate ten­ants. Chil­dren ran about the yard, seem­ing­ly un­aware of the po­ten­tial health haz­ard.

Some farm­ers use that same con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed wa­ter for their crops.

Ar­lene Her­nan­dez, one of the more out­spo­ken res­i­dents, point­ed out that the drains in the area had not been cleared for years.

She took Guardian Me­dia to a dump­ing ground where mounds of de­bris, in­clud­ing bro­ken tiles, con­crete, white waste and oth­er ma­te­r­i­al lit­tered the land­scape.

She said peo­ple al­so used the des­o­late area to dump bod­ies of mur­der vic­tims in the past.

Cal­len­der said the res­i­dents can­not take any more and are plead­ing for help be­fore the next heavy down­pour.