Sascha Wil­son

Hun­dreds of res­i­dents are strand­ed while sev­er­al evac­u­at­ed af­ter flood wa­ters rose in sev­er­al parts of South Trinidad fol­low­ing tor­ren­tial show­ers.

South Trinidad is un­der a Or­ange Lev­el River­ine Flood Alert, with sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties in Pe­nal, Debe Wood­land and Bar­rack­pore among the worst hit.

Just af­ter lunch to­day, two WASA em­ploy­ees had to be res­cued from the flood-rav­aged Ra­goo­nanan Trace in Pe­nal on a dinghy by work­ers from the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion.

The South Oropouche Riv­er was among sev­er­al rivers and trib­u­taries that breached their banks, gush­ing wa­ter on­to the streets and in­to res­i­dent's prop­er­ties in sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties.

Oropouche West MP Dave Tan­coo said it's one of the worst flood­ing ex­pe­ri­enced in the area for years.

He said peo­ple's homes are un­der three and four feet of wa­ter and still ris­ing.

"It usu­al­ly takes an­oth­er sev­en to eight hours for wa­ter to leave high­er ar­eas in Princes Town and in Bar­rack­pore and finds its way here, so we ex­pect as rain con­tin­ues to fall and as the tide ris­es, we will get even high­er floods here," said Tan­coo.

While hun­dreds of res­i­dents are strand­ed, sev­er­al busi­ness­es and schools re­main closed.

At least one fam­i­ly, a cou­ple and their three chil­dren, at Su­chit Trace in Debe had to be evac­u­at­ed to the Bar­rack­pore Re­gion­al Com­plex.

While in Williamsville, sev­er­al ar­eas in­clud­ing Kent Street and Webb Street, were in­un­dat­ed with floods on Sun­day, res­i­dents are brac­ing for an­oth­er bout of flood­ing.

Mean­while, em­ploy­ees from the Pe­nal Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit are us­ing the cor­po­ra­tion trucks to de­liv­er mat­tress­es and sand­bags to strand­ed res­i­dents.