SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

Al­ready strug­gling from the eco­nom­ic im­pacts of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, res­i­dents of Gas­par­il­lo lost most of their be­long­ings yes­ter­day as heavy rain caused flood­wa­ters to rise as high as five feet in some ar­eas.

Parts of Arou­ca, Lopinot and Ch­agua­nas were al­so af­fect­ed by street and flash flood­ing.

Guardian Me­dia spoke to Gas­par­il­lo res­i­dent, Videsh Gopaul who said al­though those who live on Gopaul Av­enue have had to con­tend with flood­wa­ters in the past, yes­ter­day’s event was by far the worst.

“My fam­i­ly in the back are com­plete­ly flood­ed out, I just spoke to them and they have lost every­thing, they have al­most five feet of wa­ter in their house. They lost fridges, stoves, books, wash­ing ma­chines, com­put­ers, beds, wardrobes, so­fa sets, every­thing is lost,” Gopaul said.

Vehicles drive through flood waters along the Solomon Hochoy Highway near the Couva overpass yesterday.

Rishard Khan

Gopaul said the flood­ing be­gan af­ter just one hour of heavy rain­fall and left some homes un­der as much as five feet of wa­ter.

He es­ti­mat­ed the dam­age to his rel­a­tives home to about $100,000.

He said for years, the res­i­dents have been clam­our­ing about poor drainage in the area.

“It had a guy was build­ing a house low­er down the road and he bridge the gap and the wa­ter can’t pass as it used to, that is why we have this back up present­ly, a lit­tle above the knee is where it is nor­mal­ly about three feet­—now it is waist height—if I go in it, it will reach me by my chest right now,” he said.

MP for Tabaquite, Ani­ta Haynes, vis­it­ed the res­i­dents. She said she had re­ceived mul­ti­ple re­ports of homes be­ing in­un­dat­ed with flood­wa­ters.

She too blamed the flood­ing on poor drainage.

Flooding at Bhagwansingh Trace, off Caratal Road, Gasparillo.

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“A lot of peo­ple have lost a num­ber of things—things are re­al­ly hard for some fam­i­lies, deal­ing with COVID-19, job­less­ness, try­ing to get their chil­dren start­ed with vir­tu­al learn­ing,” she said.

She said the calls to dredge rivers in the area were ig­nored and the time to do so has now passed.

“We are now well in­to the rainy sea­son, prep­ping for the hur­ri­cane sea­son so that ship has sailed in terms of clear­ing the wa­ter­cours­es and mak­ing sure the dredg­ing of riv­er banks is done.”

Haynes said this in­ci­dent will test the re­sponse of new­ly-in­stalled So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Don­na Cox.

“I heard the new­ly in­stalled Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment spoke about get­ting aid and as­sis­tance to peo­ple in need in a faster man­ner, we are go­ing to see if they will be true to their word.”

Flooding in Gasparillo

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Haynes said she was told in some ar­eas that res­i­dents were still await­ing flood grants from two years ago.

“So they are fac­ing a prob­lem that is re­cur­ring and every time they ap­ply for grants, they are not get­ting the grants.”

ABOVE AND BELOW: Flooding in Gasparillo yesterday.

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