RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Des­per­ate Wood­land res­i­dents evac­u­at­ed their homes in a last-ditch ef­fort to es­cape ris­ing flood­wa­ters yes­ter­day, as the New Cut Chan­nel con­tin­ued to face mul­ti­ple breach­es in the river­bank, caus­ing the gush­ing wa­ter to flow in­to the Wood­land plains.

With dark skies loom­ing over­head and more rain­fall ex­pect­ed, anx­ious res­i­dents packed up their be­long­ings and fled. Oth­ers who chose to stay at home close­ly mon­i­tored the flood gauge at Ra­hamut Trace while the wa­ter lev­els con­tin­ued to rise steadi­ly.

The Guardian Me­dia crew board­ed a pirogue and jour­neyed down the riv­er to wit­ness first­hand the de­te­ri­o­rat­ing con­di­tion of the banks. The pow­er­ful cur­rents pushed the pirogue as the riv­er gushed in­to the pas­tures, drown­ing cows, sheep and goats.

Wood­land Flood Ac­tion Group pres­i­dent Adesh Singh and his team worked tire­less­ly to aid sev­er­al fam­i­lies in their evac­u­a­tion ef­forts.

“Peo­ple tried to get their live­stock out of the field, but they were too late,” Singh lament­ed.

He said through­out the night they as­sist­ed res­i­dents in se­cur­ing their valu­ables on high­er ground while chil­dren and the el­der­ly were safe­ly trans­port­ed out of the com­mu­ni­ty.

Singh ex­pressed his con­cerns about the ris­ing wa­ters due to the breach­es in the riv­er, say­ing: “Peo­ple are wor­ried, and all night we have been evac­u­at­ing peo­ple from the flood­ed ar­eas.”

Oth­er res­i­dents like Dhilpaul Gopaul shared their har­row­ing ex­pe­ri­ences, say­ing they were fed-up with an­nu­al floods.

“One of the rea­sons for this is the river­bank is not for­ti­fied prop­er­ly. Fifty feet of the bank burst away, and now the wa­ter is flow­ing like a riv­er in my house,” Gopaul said.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Sub­ri­na Bansegopaul, de­scribed how she and her two chil­dren were left strand­ed.

“Books and uni­forms have been lost in the floods. The kitchen and toi­let were filled with wa­ter. We can­not cook. We’re just wait­ing for help. We have to sleep on high­er ground,” she said.

Along Pluck Road, a group of chil­dren sought refuge on the roof of their home, hop­ing to stay safe above the ris­ing wa­ters.

Pen­sion­er Ma­hadeo Dwari­ka wad­ed through the floods at Ra­hamut Trace, say­ing: “I have 13 heads of an­i­mals. I went to cut grass for the milk­ing an­i­mals, and I am go­ing back home now. There is re­al wa­ter, about chest height.”

While the flood­wa­ters rose, res­i­dents from sur­round­ing ar­eas came to as­sist. Among them was for­mer Petrotrin man­ag­er Gow­tam Ma­haraj, who as­sist­ed strand­ed chil­dren in reach­ing their schools.

“We had to trans­port about two dozen chil­dren. Some of them had to sit the Math­e­mat­ics ex­ams. Sev­er­al ar­eas were flood­ed, and we had to trans­port them to Bar­rack­pore East, Bar­rack­pore West, Par­vati Girls’ and Debe High School,” Ma­haraj ex­plained.

How­ev­er, oth­er stu­dents like Ar­i­ana Karim, who had no as­sis­tance, ar­rived at school late.

Karim said: “I at­tend AS­JA Girls’ and to be hon­est, it was tough get­ting to school be­cause I had to take a one-hour de­tour and I ar­rived late.”

Mean­while, South Oropouche River­ine Flood Ac­tion Group pres­i­dent Ed­ward Mood­ie said the ex­ten­sive flood­ing in Wood­land could have been pre­vent­ed if the Min­istry of Works had tak­en their calls to for­ti­fy the river­banks se­ri­ous­ly.

“This could have been stopped be­fore it start­ed. We warned them and even record­ed videos of the cracked bank. No­body came to fix the banks. One con­trac­tor is try­ing to fix a breach on the road,” Mood­ie said.

He urged the min­istry to as­sist, sug­gest­ing the use of truck tyres and sand­bags to fix the breach­es.

“The truck tyres could be piled on the breached bank and they could cut the man­grove wood and send it down as piles then bring in sand­bags,” Mood­ie said.

Em­pha­sis­ing the need for help, food, sani­tis­ers and dry goods, Mood­ie said the min­istry must work swift­ly to fix the breach­es.

By mid­day, Laing Con­trac­tors were seen on the river­bank at­tempt­ing to fix one breach near Pluck Road, San Fran­cique.

Coun­cil­lor for Av­o­cat San Fran­cique, Dood­nath Mayrhoo, who was seen dis­trib­ut­ing food, echoed the call for as­sis­tance, de­clar­ing the area a dis­as­ter zone.

Mayrhoo said fur­ther rain­fall would on­ly ex­ac­er­bate the dev­as­ta­tion.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi said a de­tailed as­sess­ment of flood loss­es will be com­piled and re­vealed to­day. He said he spent the day tour­ing the flood zones to see the ex­tend to the dam­age first­hand.