High tides added to flood water from incessant rains yesterday, leaving low lying communities in Woodland, Penal and Barrackpore in south Trinidad under water.
Some areas, including Mungal Trace No 1 and Rahamut Trace in Woodland, were inaccessible for several hours. At Pluck Road, floods prevented vehicular access as the Oropouche River near the Sudama Teerath site broke its banks, flooding the nearby lagoons and homes.}
Sieunarine Ghisawan, one of the residents marooned by the flood waters, complained: “I cannot leave my house because I fell down during the last floods and I cannot walk.
“Right now everything from downstairs destroyed because there is three feet of water in there. This is the fourth major flood for the year. The Trinidad River is clogged and the first Iron Bridge river also needs cleaning.”
Devika Singh, who waded through the floods to meet members of the Disaster Management Unit from the Penal/Debe Regional Corporation, said she was still recovering from the last floods.
“I am heartbroken. I have a 12-year-old disabled granddaughter to take care of and they stopped her disability grant. We now started to recover from the last floods and now this. We tried to save as much as we can by carrying stuff upstairs but right now if the floods continue to rise we will lose everything again,” she said.
Singh said residents of Mungal Trace did not get any grants from the Ministry of Social Development after floods devastate the area earlier in 2017.
“Now that this has happened we are hoping that the government will act swiftly and provide us with some assistance to get back what we lost,” she said.
Visham Mungal, who stayed in his house despite the rising floods, appealed for the Ministry of Works s to clear the watercourses.
His neighbour Balram Bansegopaul, whose family had to evacuate their house, said the Bhagmania River is in need of cleaning. He said there was two feet of water inside his house.
“We really need the government to do something for us because we cannot afford to leave our valuables and run every time it rains only to return to see everything lost in floods,” Bansegopaul said.
Many of the watercourses in Penal and Oropouche were filled with debris yesterday. In some places huge trees were growing in the centre of rivers. Residents say it has been more than seven years since the rivers were last cleaned.
At Suchit Trace Penal, residents refrained from cleaning slush from under their homes because they expected more rain. At Rochard Douglas Road the floods had subsided by midday.
PENAL/DEBE CHAIRMAN APPEALS FOR HELP
Chairman of the Penal/Debe Regional Corporation Dr Allen Sammy wants an arrangement to be made with contractors to clean water courses across the country. He said if Government could not pay them to do this, they could arrange staggered payments over a period of time.
Sammy said the Papourie River, which drains into the Oropouche River, and the Karamath River, which drains into the New Cut channel, are in need of dredging.
“I always remind people that in 1987, the then minister John Humphrey mobilized all contractors and paid them in a staggered way to clean the entire country. There was no flooding thereafter. Contractors can assist but they must have an assurance that they will be paid. You cannot expect contractors to keep giving especially where the State owes them millions of dollars,” he said.
Apart from the dredging of the rivers, Sammy said there must also be an end to dumping and prevention of illegal backfilling of low lying land.