A heavy af­ter­noon down­pour trig­gered flash floods in Pe­nal and Pointe-a-Pierre yes­ter­day.

The rains start­ed af­ter 2 pm and with­in one hour, floods start­ed to rise near Pe­nal Con­vent at Oliv­er­ie Dri­ve, Clarke Road and Pe­nal Rock Road.

At Dabiedi­al Road, off the Pe­nal Rock Road, sev­er­al cars stalled in the wa­ter. School chil­dren were car­ried bod­i­ly while oth­er mo­torists parked on the road­side wait­ing for the floods to sub­side.

A res­i­dent who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said a po­lice of­fi­cer had blocked the main wa­ter­course be­cause he did not want sur­face wa­ter to flow at the side of his prop­er­ty.

“There are about 10 hous­es here that get flood­ed out every time it rains. We have made re­ports to the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion and we want them to clear the drains,” the res­i­dent said.

She ex­plained that since the wa­ter­course was di­vert­ed, ar­eas that tra­di­tion­al­ly did not flood were now get­ting up to two feet of wa­ter.

Coun­cil­lor Shan­ti Boodram and Diptee Ram­nath toured sev­er­al of the flood-strick­en ar­eas yes­ter­day.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Chair­man of the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Dr Allen Sam­my said he was thank­ful that the floods sub­sided quick­ly.

He said there was al­so a re­port of flood­ing at Chester Street in Debe and crews from the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment team were on hand to lend as­sis­tance.

Mean­while, at Pointe-a-Pierre Road, there was some flood­ing near the re­fin­ery. How­ev­er, this too quick­ly sub­sided.

Around 3.57 pm, a yel­low lev­el ad­verse weath­er alert was dis­con­tin­ued.

Fore­cast­ers said the threat of sig­nif­i­cant im­pacts had passed al­though a few in­ter­vals of show­ers were ex­pect­ed overnight.

The Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment al­so is­sued a bul­letin ad­vis­ing cau­tion.

“Per­sons liv­ing or com­mut­ing along the riv­er bank are ad­vised to mon­i­tor the con­di­tions and take pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sures to safe­guard life and prop­er­ty. If in the area, get to high­er ground. Wait un­til the flood­wa­ter sub­sides. Use al­ter­na­tive routes, where pos­si­ble,” the ODPM said.

Flood­ing was al­so re­port­ed at Mar­aval, along the Cou­va Main Road and in Diego Mar­tin.