The es­ti­mat­ed cost of dam­age and in­fra­struc­tur­al loss in the Diego Mar­tin area and sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties af­ter se­vere flood­ing last Sat­ur­day is over $100 mil­lion. Chair­man and in­ci­dent com­man­der of the Diego Mar­tin Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, An­tho­ny Sam­my, gave a ten­ta­tive fig­ure of $109,943,600 yes­ter­day while speak­ing with re­porters at a news con­fer­ence at the Diego Mar­tin Re­gion­al Au­thor­i­ty's Trans­port Sec­tion, North Post Road, Diego Mar­tin.

"These are pre­lim­i­nary fig­ures and we an­tic­i­pate this amount to in­crease as as­sess­ments con­tin­ue over the next few days. The ini­tial as­sess­ment of the dam­ages clear­ly in­di­cate the ex­tent of loss­es to res­i­dents with sev­er­al fam­i­lies los­ing every­thing but their lives," he said. Sam­my said since the area had been de­clared a dis­as­ter zone and the cost of clean up and restora­tion work was be­ing di­vid­ed among the var­i­ous state agen­cies in­volved. "A crew of over 1,000 peo­ple have been as­signed in teams to help in clean­ing up," he added.

The cor­po­ra­tion will al­so be pay­ing the fu­ner­al ex­pens­es for Everol Ben­tham of Rich­plain Road and Solomon Brit­to of Up­per La Puer­ta who died when they were swept away in the land­slides. Two peo­ple are still miss­ing and there are still no con­firmed re­ports about them. Sev­er­al peo­ple have been al­so hos­pi­talised with mi­nor in­juries. He urged those res­i­dents of the area who have been af­fect­ed by the floods to utilise the shel­ters as all the ba­sic ameni­ties were pro­vid­ed there.

"This is a ma­jor dis­as­ter that af­fect­ed the Diego re­gion. Many res­i­dents in the var­i­ous dis­tricts have been af­fect­ed in one way or an­oth­er. Teams as­signed to the var­i­ous task groups have been ramp­ing up ef­forts sig­nif­i­cant­ly in an ef­fort to meet the needs of the vic­tims," he added. Sam­my said over the next few days as the cor­po­ra­tion strived to clean up and re­store the area there would be pe­ri­od­ic dis­rup­tions and clo­sures of sev­er­al road­ways.

Over 229 res­i­dents had con­tact­ed the cor­po­ra­tion since last Sat­ur­day for as­sis­tance, he said. He warned res­i­dents not to dis­pose of their dam­aged fur­ni­ture and ap­pli­ances as dam­age as­sess­ments were be­ing car­ried out by the Min­istry of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment and the Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Self Help.

"Dur­ing this as­sess­ment, rep­re­sen­ta­tives will take note of the house­hold items de­stroyed and phys­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture dam­age caused as a re­sult of the floods and land­slides. As such, res­i­dents are urged to not dis­pose of de­stroyed fur­ni­ture and ap­pli­ances un­til the as­sess­ment is com­plet­ed," he said. Sam­my said he be­lieved the re­lief ef­forts have been good so far and that the cor­po­ra­tion would keep train­ing and get­ting more pre­pared in the event of any an­oth­er in­ci­dent sim­i­lar to this one.

MORE IN­FOR­MA­TION

Ar­eas af­fect­ed by the flood­ing:

Ch­aguara­mas, Pt Cu­mu­na, Glen­coe, Good­wood, La Puer­ta, Covi­gne, Rich Plain, Di­a­mond Vale, Bagatelle, Blue Basin, St. Lu­cien, Cameron Hill, Mo­ka, Boisierre #1 & #2, Pe­tit Val­ley, Co­corite, Belle Vue, Morne Co­co, Alyce Glen.

Hot­lines:

ODPM - 511

Flow Hot­lines- 222-1859, 222-1860, 222-1830

Dig­i­cel Hot­line - 387-0260

Bmo­bile Hot­lines - 473-5398, 473-5556, 473-5546.

Shel­ters

Cen­tral Diego Mar­tin Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Diego Mar­tin; La Sei­va Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Mar­aval (based at the old ri­fle range).