SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

Heavy rains overnight on Sat­ur­day led to street and flash flood­ing in sev­er­al parts of cen­tral and east Trinidad on Sun­day.

High winds brought on by the In­tertrop­i­cal Con­ver­gence Zone and back-to-back trop­i­cal waves, blew off six roofs and downed four trees in both ar­eas.

Res­i­den­tial flood­ing was re­port­ed in three ar­eas while street flood­ing was wide­spread.

Long­denville/Tal­paro coun­cil­lor, Ryan Ram­per­sad told Guardian Me­dia he re­ceived mul­ti­ple re­ports of flood­ing.

The Wel­come Road, Cunu­pia com­mu­ni­ty was one of the worst hit, Ram­per­sad said.

“Af­ter a cou­ple hours of rain, Wel­come Road North suf­fered some heavy flood­ing, it was a bit un­prece­dent­ed in some ar­eas where we did not ex­pe­ri­ence be­fore,” Ram­per­sad said.

“A num­ber of hous­es got wa­ter in­side and I al­so got some re­ports of fam­i­lies be­com­ing so fright­ened, they evac­u­at­ed their homes,” he added.

How­ev­er, he said prepa­ra­tions for the pos­si­ble pas­sage of a trop­i­cal cy­clone sev­er­al weeks ago helped mit­i­gate the dam­age, as many res­i­dents were equipped with sand­bags to pre­vent wa­ter from en­ter­ing their homes.

Ram­per­sad said rivers in the area were not dredged be­fore the start of the rainy sea­son, mak­ing the sit­u­a­tion worse for res­i­dents.

“I had about 13 hous­es flood­ed in that area…Whilst I am hap­py that the dredg­ing is tak­ing place now, it is ac­tu­al­ly a few months too late, it was sup­posed to be done be­fore the end of the dry sea­son,” he said.

In the Tal­paro area, the pro­longed rain­fall led to a road col­lapse, Ram­per­sad said.

“Along El Que­ma­do Road, which links the com­mu­ni­ty to Mun­do Nue­vo, a num­ber of hous­es are af­fect­ed be­cause there is an old land­slip that fi­nal­ly gave way be­cause of the over-sat­u­ra­tion, it broke away com­plete­ly and ve­hi­cles can­not pass,” he said.

He said there was an al­ter­na­tive route that the res­i­dents could use and vowed to lob­by the Min­istry of Works to re­pair the land­slip as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.

Ram­per­sad said in the in­ter­im, the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion would shore up the road­way and back­fill it.

There were al­so mul­ti­ple re­ports of street flood­ing in Ca­paro, which Ram­per­sad said were ex­ac­er­bat­ed by an af­ter­noon high tide.

Ac­cord­ing to the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM), there were re­ports of fall­en trees in Mara­cas, Tabaquite, To­co and Man­zanil­la.

By 6 pm, the ODPM had re­ceived three re­ports of res­i­den­tial flood­ing in Freeport, Cunu­pia and En­ter­prise. There were re­ports of roofs be­ing blown off in Princes Town, Ma­yaro and Guayagua­yare.

In Gran Cou­va, a land­slide re­sult­ed in one home col­laps­ing while in Princes Town, an­oth­er land­slide was re­port­ed at the back of a home.

The Ca­paro Riv­er al­so bursts its banks around 6 pm, lead­ing to some ar­eas be­ing cor­doned off to ve­hic­u­lar traf­fic.