The Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice yes­ter­day de­scribed Sat­ur­day's rain­fall, which caused mil­lions of dol­lars in dam­age to homes, ve­hi­cles and house­hold items, as "usu­al" for this time of the year, es­pe­cial­ly giv­en the in­tense heat­ing dur­ing the morn­ing and the low wind speeds. The Met Of­fice said it pre­dict­ed there would be af­ter­noon thun­der­show­ers on Sat­ur­day in its week­ly four-day fore­cast. "Iso­lat­ed thun­der­show­ers ac­com­pa­nied by gusty winds and street and flash flood­ing formed part of our spe­cial­ly up­dat­ed fore­cast is­sued on Sat­ur­day at 10.45 am," said the Met Of­fice in the state­ment.

Mean­while, in a sep­a­rate state­ment, the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM) said a num­ber of ar­eas in north west Trinidad were af­fect­ed by the flood­ing in­clud­ing Mar­aval, Wood­brook, Co­corite and Diego Mar­tin. The St James Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary School was par­tic­u­lar­ly hard-hit with sig­nif­i­cant dam­age to class­rooms and com­put­ers.