Shar­lene Ram­per­sad

Dozens of homes in Val­sayn South were flood­ed for over 12 hours yes­ter­day, as the St Joseph Riv­er and sev­er­al trib­u­taries run­ning through the area over­spilled their banks.

In the Spring Vil­lage area, res­i­dents said the wa­ter start­ed ris­ing around 4.30 pm on Sat­ur­day.

By noon yes­ter­day, the flood­wa­ters were as high as four feet in some ar­eas, with res­i­dents aban­don­ing their homes and seek­ing safe­ty on high­er grounds.

Sook­daye Ram­sub­ag, 68, wept as she showed our news team the wa­ter in­side her home. Part of her home is built low­er than the road lev­el and those rooms had flood­wa­ter as high as four feet.

“I can’t take this again, I don’t know what else to do,” Ram­sub­ag cried.

Point­ing out a suit­case placed high above the flood­wa­ters, Ram­sub­ag said her youngest son was due to re­turn to the UK to­day.

“I don’t know how he will reach in the air­port or what he pack­ing to car­ry with him, every­thing soak up,” she said.

Ram­sub­ag said just a week ago, her fam­i­ly was in bet­ter spir­its while cel­e­brat­ing her 68th birth­day.

“My last son come and do a big birth­day par­ty for me and every­thing was so good, look at what we go­ing through now,” she said.

Her broth­er, who is dis­abled, lay on a mat­tress in a room where the wa­ter was about ten inch­es high. She said he does not speak and can­not walk.

Ram­sub­ag said her fam­i­ly would have to aban­don the house if the wa­ter con­tin­ued to rise lat­er yes­ter­day.

A short dis­tance away, at Pil­lai Street, Dar­ren Neer­an­jan said res­i­dents were fed-up with the flood­ing.

“This is about the fifth flood we get since the be­gin­ning of Oc­to­ber, as you could see how high it is,” Neer­an­jan said.

He said with con­stant, heavy rain­fall, res­i­dents were stuck in a heart-break­ing cy­cle.

“Every time the wa­ter come up, you have to wait for it to go down, clean up and then rain falling two days lat­er and you in the same po­si­tion again. Wa­ter come up Wednes­day, it gone down Fri­day, Sat­ur­day evening it come back up and watch what go­ing on, so we don’t know when it go­ing down again,” he said.

He said about 40 homes were af­fect­ed and the res­i­dents had not got­ten any as­sis­tance from any State agency.

“You on­ly see them for elec­tion time, that’s the on­ly time them out­side. When is elec­tion time, they come by your house but not when it have flood,” he said.

He said yes­ter­day’s flood­ing was the worst of the year so far.

“Peo­ple los­ing fur­ni­ture, ap­pli­ances, food, I don’t know how much more peo­ple can take in here, my neigh­bour who rent­ing there leav­ing to­day be­cause he lost every­thing Sat­ur­day night. He said he not stay­ing in this area any­more,” he said.

Neer­an­jan said while some men and young boys were out and about, brav­ing the flood­wa­ters, many el­der­ly peo­ple and chil­dren could not leave their homes. He said with more rain in the fore­cast, those who have health is­sues could be in dan­ger if they need emer­gency as­sis­tance.

“An am­bu­lance can’t come in here, no ve­hi­cles can’t pass, if some­thing hap­pen to some­body, I don’t know what we will do.”

In Anoop Street, Prem­c­hand Anoop said al­though there was about three feet of wa­ters in his home, he was try­ing to help his neigh­bours.

“We try­ing to car­ry down some sand­bags and move out some cars. You see how every­body park­ing on the junc­tion? No­body could dri­ve in this,” Anoop said.

While Guardian Me­dia was in the area, sev­er­al res­i­dents called out to our news team, ask­ing whether meals or sand­bags were be­ing de­liv­ered. One woman climbed on­to a short wall in front her home and plead­ed for sand­bags.

“You don’t have any more sand­bags? Please, we need a few,” she shout­ed.

When she was told our news team had none, she climbed back down and went in­side her house again.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Nicole Singh, said be­cause she lives in a ground-floor apart­ment, all her gro­ceries had been cov­ered by flood­wa­ters.

“Every­thing in my cup­board wet, even the fridge get soak, we re­al­ly don’t have noth­ing to eat, I was hop­ing some­body bring food at least for us,” Singh said.

She has been liv­ing in the area for the past four years. Ap­peal­ing for as­sis­tance, Singh said her fam­i­ly was strug­gling to sur­vive.

“We have been try­ing but it is very sad, we re­al­ly need some kind of help,” she said.