Ris­ing floods left many peo­ple strand­ed Thurs­day night as tor­ren­tial rains pound­ed the sat­u­rat­ed Oropouche Basin for hours.

And while hun­dreds fought the floods to reach the safe­ty of their homes, wreck­er ser­vice op­er­a­tors worked over­time pulling stalled car be­long­ing to frus­trat­ed mo­torists for a price of as much as $300.

"I'm try­ing to get home at San Fran­cique but I can't get past the Big Ap­ple in Debe be­cause the riv­er broke its banks. At this point I will do any­thing to get home," Fa­reed Khan told the T&T Guardian ear­li­er tonight.

Aerial view of floods in Monkeytown, Barrackpore, yesterday.

IVAN TOOLSIE

At Wood­land, res­i­dents grap­pled to put sand­bags around their homes. A few res­i­dents evac­u­at­ed. One res­i­dent said a caiman en­tered her prop­er­ty.

"I have a sick son. Last year we lost every­thing in floods and to­day it was the same. We call­ing our coun­cil­lor to get sand­bags but up to now we wait­ing. The fridge and stove got washed away," she lament­ed.

Ter­ry Laldeo and his fa­ther Dan had to evac­u­ate their home last night as floods rose more than three feet in­side his home.

From 6 pm to 8 pm, there was ex­ten­sive traf­fic along Clarke Road, SS Erin Road and Debe Trace.

High tides pre­vent­ed drain off of flood wa­ters, ex­ac­er­bat­ing the in­land floods and keep­ing the main wa­ter­cours­es, in­clud­ing the Bhag­ma­nia Riv­er, Oropouche Riv­er, Gordineau Riv­er and New Cut Chan­nel, over­flow­ing their banks.

The Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Team was on the ground de­liv­er­ing tar­pau­lins and sand­bags to af­fect­ed res­i­dents.

The T&T Guardian will bring you more as this sto­ry un­folds.