Over 40 homes were yesterday underwater in the Valsayn South and El Carmen areas, following flooding from the weekend’s weather conditions.
Approximately ten homes in the Springland, Valsayn area were completely flooded out and four families were evacuated.
Speaking to Guardian Media yesterday, Spring Drive resident Ronald Ali said his neighbour was forced to evacuate and he fears he will soon have to do the same.
“It’s me, my wife, my 90-year-old mom and the caretaker. My mom can’t walk, so if water goes inside, we’re going to have a bigger problem. I pray to God that we don’t have to move out, I really say a prayer for that and for the other neighbours as well,” Ali said.
Other residents could not risk coming out of their homes to speak with Guardian Media. However, Valsayn/St Joseph councillor Seema Ramsaran-Augustine was at the scene and estimated the floodwaters to be around four feet high in some areas. She said she had been in frequent communication with the residents since Friday and the regional corporation was on standby to help evacuate families.
“I had one resident who called me in tears because what she didn’t lose two weeks ago, she lost now. So, she has lost everything in her house, because of the height of the water. I made contact with the other residents and they will let me know as time goes along, so I’m trying to put things in place because definitely, we need a boat. The Fire Services tried to go in there on Saturday but they could not because the water was too high,” she said.
Ramsaran-Augustine said on several occasions she reached out to Minister of Works and Transport Rohan Sinanan and St Augustine MP Khadijah Ameen on the flooding issue in the Springland area. She said they are both aware of the situation but there have been no solutions.
“We have done many visits with the Ministry of Works and Transport, so it’s not like they’re not aware of it, they are very much aware of the problem and also the solution, but to date, nothing has been done. I am appealing to the Ministry of Works and Transport on behalf of the residents, these residents have been going through this for over 40 years,” she added.
Meanwhile, in El Carmen, residents were frustrated and fed-up with the flooding in the area.
The Balsingh family, who live on Caroni South Bank Road, said their home had been damaged several times by the flooding. In their 30 years living in the community, the worst flooding they faced was in October 2018. This year, they thought they had finally recovered from this and even extended their front bridge in order to prevent floodwaters. However, in the past four days, they have already been flooded out twice.
“It’s been really frustrating because we have to get up and lift all our furniture. This weekend, we got flooded out twice so it’s really stressful to deal with right now. I don’t think we’re going to take down any furniture. We’re going to leave it up because that is the safest way to move because it doesn’t make sense, we take it down, and then you have to stress yourself again to put it back up,” a member of the Balsingh family, who wished to withhold her name, said.
Another resident and businessman Alim Karim, said after years of the same situation happening, he is discouraged.
“Nobody cares about us. This is a simple thing to fix. If you raise the road here, people can come in and out here and up by Saroop Avenue, but nobody seems to care. It’s stressful because if you look around, if you see all these people’s houses have water and I don’t know what to say, I just don’t know what to say, because in the space of three days, it’s two floods we faced,” Karim said.