While some parts of the coun­try ex­pe­ri­enced crip­pling wa­ter short­ages over the past 72 hours, over 150 fam­i­lies in Ce­dros were left ma­rooned yes­ter­day when flood wa­ters in­vad­ed the com­mu­ni­ty of Bonasse.

A ris­ing tide cou­pled with one hour of heavy rain­fall caused the flood­ing which set­tled in­side res­i­dents’ yards and homes.

De­o­dath Toolsie and his wife Eileen tried to put their fur­ni­ture and ap­pli­ances on high­er ground when the floods start­ed to rise.

“We have about 18 inch­es of wa­ter in­side the house right now. It was ter­ri­ble, the worst I have seen so far,” Eileen ex­plained be­fore pass­ing the phone to her hus­band.

Toolsie said the floods were caused by an in­com­plete flood­gate.

“Right now the whole house and the en­tire vil­lage is flood­ed. I lost my couch. The fridge is wet so we don’t know how long it will last us now.

“The drain that they con­struct was a bad en­gi­neer­ing. The en­tire vil­lage has floods from the hos­pi­tal on­wards. We had about three feet of wa­ter here. We are bail­ing out wa­ter from in­side the house,” Toolsie added.

He said the rain start­ed falling around 11 am and as the floods be­gan to rise stu­dents were kept in­side the school com­pound. By 2 pm, a team from the Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion went to Bonasse and be­gan clear­ing the wa­ter­cours­es.

Coun­cil­lor Shankar Teelucks­ingh said the flood­gates and the bridge at Bonasse were sup­posed to have been com­plet­ed ear­li­er this year by the Min­istry of Works. How­ev­er, he said the prob­lem was com­pound­ed be­cause there had been no de-silt­ing of rivers and drains since 2015.

“The flood­gates were re­designed to al­low low wa­ter run-off but this is in­ap­pro­pri­ate be­cause Ce­dros is be­low sea lev­el, so once there are high tides and heavy rains the com­mu­ni­ty will flood,” Teelucks­ingh said.

Teelucks­ingh said more than 150 fam­i­lies from Bonasse Vil­lage were di­rect­ly af­fect­ed but not­ed it may al­so take a few days for the wa­ter to sub­side in some ar­eas.

“This is the sec­ond time we are hav­ing this prob­lem. The last time vil­lagers were not com­pen­sat­ed. The schools were filled with wa­ter to­day and I am call­ing on the Min­is­ter of Works to re­spond now,” Teelucks­ingh said.

He added that the am­bu­lance and po­lice ve­hi­cles could not pass through the floods and traf­fic backed up along the South­ern Main Road as the flood wa­ters cut off ac­cess to the vil­lages of Fullar­ton and Ica­cos.

Min­is­ter of Works Ro­han Sinanan was in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day and could not re­spond to ques­tions.

Last May, how­ev­er, Sinanan said a con­trac­tor had al­ready been paid to restart and com­plete work on the Ce­dros Bridge and the flood­gates with­in six weeks, well be­fore the height of the rainy sea­son. How­ev­er, the project, which is 90 per cent com­plet­ed, re­mains at a stand­still as the con­trac­tor is owed $4.5 mil­lion.