The hur­ri­cane sea­son of­fi­cial­ly be­gan on June 1 and, along with its com­mence­ment, are the grow­ing fears of flood­ing events through­out var­i­ous parts of the coun­try. In this re­gard, the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM) kind­ly con­tributed this ar­ti­cle, which treats with the caus­es, im­pacts and the var­i­ous mit­i­ga­tion mea­sures that one could em­ploy to help re­duce the ad­verse ef­fects of flood­ing. In or­der to have a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of the caus­es of flood­ing, one must first try to un­der­stand the nat­ur­al process that oc­curs when rain falls.

The wa­ter pro­duced by rain is ei­ther ab­sorbed by the soil in a process known as in­fil­tra­tion or it flows over the land and en­ters ex­ist­ing wa­ter­ways, be it nat­ur­al like rivers and streams, or man-made, such as drains. The wa­ter which takes the lat­ter route is termed sur­face run-off. It is the ac­cu­mu­la­tion of this sur­face run-off in low ly­ing ar­eas or in ar­eas where drainage is lim­it­ed or un­able to ac­com­mo­date this runoff that gen­er­ates flood­ing. Flood­ing can al­so oc­cur when a riv­er over­flows its banks due to its wa­ter hold­ing ca­pac­i­ty be­com­ing over­whelmed.

It is im­por­tant to note that flood­ing can re­sult from nat­ur­al cir­cum­stances; tra­di­tion­al­ly oc­cur­ring af­ter heavy and/or pro­longed rain­fall and in ar­eas of flat re­lief. How­ev­er, it has been man's ac­tiv­i­ties and the en­vi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion that have played the biggest part in in­creas­ing both the fre­quen­cy and sever­i­ty of flood­ing na­tion­al­ly. These ac­tiv­i­ties have caused flood­ing in ar­eas which nev­er pre­vi­ous­ly ex­pe­ri­enced flood­ing and have added to the de­spair of the flood vic­tims.

Ac­tiv­i­ties that in­duce flood­ing

Some of man's ac­tiv­i­ties that are known to in­duce flood­ing are:

1.De­for­esta­tion: De­for­esta­tion refers to the re­moval of nat­u­ral­ly oc­cur­ring veg­e­ta­tion from land ei­ther through the meth­ods of burn­ing or the cut­ting down of trees.

2.Poor land use prac­tices: This in­volves poor farm­ing prac­tices such as slash and burn agri­cul­ture, over cul­ti­va­tion and over graz­ing.

3.Quar­ry­ing: This is the clear­ing of land for the re­moval of ag­gre­gates (main­ly sand and grav­el) to be utilised in the con­struc­tion in­dus­try.

4.Ur­ban­i­sa­tion: This is in­creased con­struc­tion of both pri­vate and pub­lic hous­ing de­vel­op­ments as well as com­mer­cial build­ings.

5.Im­prop­er waste dis­pos­al: Every bit of care­less­ly dis­card­ed waste can ac­cu­mu­late in drains com­pro­mis­ing its abil­i­ty to ef­fec­tive­ly trans­port sur­face runoff out of pop­u­lat­ed ar­eas.

Force­ful flood­wa­ters

There are many peo­ple in T&T who have ex­pe­ri­enced the ad­verse ef­fects of flood­ing. Flood­ing is the most com­mon­ly oc­cur­ring haz­ard in this coun­try, and it has dev­as­tat­ing ef­fects, the worst of which in­cludes the loss of hu­man life. The fol­low­ing are some of the dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences that could be in­curred due to force­ful flood­wa­ters:

1. Loss of hu­man life.

2. Loss of live­stock and agri­cul­tur­al crops.

3. Dam­age to prop­er­ty and in­fra­struc­ture.

4. Health is­sues.

Pre­ven­tive mea­sures

There is ab­solute­ly noth­ing that we can do to ful­ly pre­vent flood­ing from tak­ing place.

How­ev­er, we can put mea­sures in place that would re­duce the im­pacts that this nat­ur­al event has on us, such as:

Re­for­esta­tion

This in­volves the re­plant­i­ng of trees and veg­e­ta­tion in ar­eas that lack for­est cov­er. This helps to sta­bilise soil, pre­vent soil ero­sion and in­crease soil in­fil­tra­tion.

Reg­u­lar clean­ing and main­te­nance of drains

This ac­tiv­i­ty would en­sure the op­ti­mi­sa­tion and ef­fec­tive­ness of drainage­process­es.

Dredg­ing/de-silt­ing of rivers

In this process, the ex­cess buildup of soil sed­i­ments and oth­er ma­te­ri­als are re­moved by the deep­en­ing of the riverbed and riv­er chan­nel so that the riv­er can hold more wa­ter.

Prop­er land use plan­ning

Get prop­er plan­ning guid­ance be­fore con­struct­ing any types of build­ings. This is im­por­tance as new de­vel­op­ments could put a strain on al­ready ex­ist­ing drainage sys­tems. If pre­cau­tions are not em­ployed, the nat­ur­al flow of the riv­er chan­nel could be un­in­ten­tion­al­ly di­vert­ed, re­sult­ing in flood­ing in ar­eas that were not tra­di­tion­al­ly af­fect­ed by flood­ing.

Cease ir­re­spon­si­ble dump­ing of un­want­ed and waste ma­te­r­i­al

The reper­cus­sions of in­dulging in lit­ter­ing in both a small scale (throw­ing a sty­ro­foam box at the side of the road) or on a large scale (dump­ing un­want­ed ap­pli­ances, such as re­frig­er­a­tors and oth­er forms of white waste in­to rivers) cause se­vere flood­ing events.

Flood-prone re­gions

Ar­eas in Trinidad that are tra­di­tion­al­ly vul­ner­a­ble to the neg­a­tive im­pli­ca­tions of flood­ing in­clude:Kel­ly Vil­lage, Ca­paro, Long­denville, St He­le­na,Pe­nal, Erin, Clax­ton Bay, Oropouche, Siparia,Bel­mont, Port of Spain, Diego Mar­tin, Mar­aval,San­gre Grande, Plum Mi­tan, San­ta Cruz, St He­le­na Vil­lage and Can­taro.

It is im­por­tant to note that in cas­es of very heavy or pro­longed rain­fall, land­slides can al­so oc­cur. There­fore, if you live in an area that has been tra­di­tion­al­ly sus­cep­ti­ble to land­slides, the ODPM ad­vis­es you to take ex­tra pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sures against this oth­er type of haz­ard.

There are cer­tain pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sures that one can per­form to help re­duce loss­es, es­pe­cial­ly if you live in any of the afore­men­tioned flood prone re­gions on the is­land.

Here are some tips:

•Chil­dren should be ed­u­cat­ed re­gard­ing the risks in­volved in play­ing in flood wa­ters.

•Have an emer­gency plan for one's fam­i­ly or busi­ness, so it is known be­fore­hand what to do.

•One should al­ways se­cure and store all im­por­tant doc­u­ments, such as birth cer­tifi­cates and pass­ports, in a wa­ter-proof bag or sealed con­tain­er.

• When con­struct­ing homes in flood prone ar­eas, build your home on stilts and place any valu­able ap­pli­ances and fur­ni­ture at an el­e­vat­ed height.

• Do not build or ex­tend your homes or busi­ness too close to rivers, ravines and drains, this would com­pro­mise the riv­er's or drain's abil­i­ty to al­low rain wa­ter to flow out to sea. Al­so, the banks of rivers move over time, so we need to leave some space for these changes to oc­cur.

• Try to park ve­hi­cles in an area that would not flood.

•Se­cure pets on high­er ground.

•En­sure that your fam­i­ly has an emer­gency kit that is stocked with the ap­pro­pri­ate items.

Safe­ty tips

Last­ly here are some safe­ty tips that should be heed­ed dur­ing and af­ter a flood­ing event:

1. Lis­ten to weath­er bul­letins for up­dates.

2. Do not dri­ve through flood wa­ters.

3. Do not seek shel­ter un­der cul­verts or bridges.

4. Avoid mov­ing wa­ter at all costs and do not walk through flood wa­ters even if it seems to be stag­nant.

5. Check homes for dam­ages in­curred dur­ing a flood­ing event and try to re­pair as soon as pos­si­ble.

6. Af­ter a flood­ing event, make sure to clear all de­bris from drains and chan­nels near your home.

In the event that you find your­self be­ing af­fect­ed by flood­ing, you can call the des­ig­nat­ed re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion for your area or the ODPM at 800-ODPM.