Yvonne Ba­boolal

There were no re­ports of se­ri­ous dam­age to prop­er­ty re­sult­ing from yes­ter­day's flash flood­ing ac­cord­ing to Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Em­manuel George. "There was some flood­ing in Barataria and Port-of-Spain," he said, "but I don't think it caused much, if any, dam­age. Of­fi­cers from the Drainage Di­vi­sion were out there re­view­ing the sit­u­a­tion and they got no re­ports of se­ri­ous dam­age to prop­er­ty," George told the T&T Guardian.

The min­is­ter said he al­so spoke to chair­man of the Diego Mar­tin Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion An­tho­ny Sam­my who said the Diego Mar­tin Riv­er was swollen, but there were no re­ports of flood­ing in the area. He said over the next cou­ple of days the Drainage Di­vi­sion will be in the Port-of-Spain area check­ing for No re­ports of flood dam­age says George clogged drains.

George said while yes­ter­day's rains would have caused some traf­fic, the show­ers and flash flood­ing were all a re­sult of nor­mal In­ter- Trop­i­cal Con­ver­gence Zone (ITCZ) ac­tiv­i­ty around this time of the year. "I got a re­lease from the Met Of­fice around 1.30 pm promis­ing heavy show­ers and flash flood­ing be­cause of the ITCZ. And that did take place," he said.

Asked about the new traf­fic plan for St James, George de­clined to di­vulge any de­tails. He said the peo­ple must first de­cide whether they agreed with the pro­posed changes or not at a meet­ing planned for yes­ter­day evening at the St James Am­phithe­atre. George would not even say whether the pro­pos­als were the min­istry's. "I don't want to com­ment yet.

This evening (yes­ter­day) we are go­ing to dis­cuss it. The peo­ple will have a chance to con­sid­er the pro­pos­als. I have to hear them first, and when they give their views on whether they agree or not, then we will do what­ev­er we have to do. "It's al­ways the peo­ple's opin­ions. That's how I op­er­ate. That's how the Gov­ern­ment op­er­ates. Peo­ple feel we don't lis­ten, but we lis­ten."