Exhausted after a long night of making coconut oil at their Debe home, Telockie Chattergoon and his wife Kemawatie Ramdath slept through their neighbors shouts and warnings that the lower portion of their home was being flooded.
For the second year in a row, the couple lost over $30,000 in furniture and appliances, as muddy water and debris invaded their kitchen and living room area of their Chester Trace, Debe home on Wednesday night.
Chattergoon, 68, told the T&T Guardian the flood was caused by a nearby residential development.
“Since they started clearing the hill opposite us, the water just rushes down whenever it rains,” he said. “Last year, we lost the tv, the fridge, two freezers and all of our food stuff.”
Chattergoon said after last year’s flood, he and Kemawatie were able to scrape together enough money from their humble coconut oil business to replace the damaged items.
“We buy a 42’ inch tv, a new fridge, new freezers everything...then to wake up yesterday morning to realise everything was destroyed again...we sleep through everything...cause we wake until after eleven that night making coconut oil.”
The pot used to ‘cook’ the coconut oil lay amongst the debris as Chattergoon busied himself trying to remove the slush from inside his kitchen.
Kemawatie, 51, said her family did not even have food to eat, as all her foodstuff was contaminated by the water.
“My son pass just now and he wanted something to eat...I give him a mango, we don’t even have food to eat.”
In total, eight households were affected, with every family suffering thousands of dollars in losses to the water that came rushing into their homes in the dead of the night.
And as the rainy season is just beginning, pensioner Meera Boodhai, 68, who has only one leg is now calling on the Town and Country Planning Division to investigate whether the land developer violated proper procedures in filling his land.
Boodhai, who lives alone and was unable to secure any of her belongings when the water came, is placing blame for the floods on the developer.
“They filled the lands, blocked up the drains and now the water has no where to pass, it comes rushing into our homes,” she said. “I want T&C to investigate this, this cannot be right...one man cannot cause so much pain to others.”
Although she is fearful that the floods will be worse the next time it rains, Boodhai said she has no where else to live and has to endure whatever comes.
“What I will do? I have to stay here, this is my home,” she said.