With a de­vel­op­ing trop­i­cal wave head­ing to­wards T&T and the Wind­ward Is­lands, Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions be­gan prep­ping for floods, land­slips and oth­er haz­ards.

At 2 pm yes­ter­day, the Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice is­sued a Yel­low Lev­el Ad­verse Weath­er Alert, be­gin­ning at 5 am to­day and end­ing at 8 pm Thurs­day. It fore­cast show­ers and iso­lat­ed thun­der­storms from this morn­ing over ocean­ic wa­ters and across T&T. It comes as the ac­tive trop­i­cal wave be­came bet­ter or­gan­ised yes­ter­day morn­ing, with a 60 per cent chance of a Trop­i­cal de­pres­sion for­ma­tion over 48 hours and an 80 per cent chance through five days.

The Unit­ed States Na­tion­al Hur­ri­cane Cen­tre (NHC) said the wave was a few hun­dred miles east of the Wind­ward Is­lands at 2 pm. The NHC ex­pects a trop­i­cal de­pres­sion with­in the next few days as the sys­tem moves west­ward to west-north­west­ward at 15 to 20 mph across the east­ern and cen­tral Caribbean Sea.

The Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice warned that to­day’s weath­er could bring gusty winds above 70km/hr with rain­fall ac­cu­mu­la­tions of 75 – 125 mm. There­fore, the pub­lic can see street or flash flood­ing, larg­er than usu­al waves in open wa­ters and the Gulf of Paria, and loose and fall­en trees.

Fol­low­ing an ad­vi­so­ry from the TTMS, Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Faris Al-Rawi met with Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Mar­vin Gon­za­les, Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds and Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port Ro­han Sinanan to dis­cuss pre­pared­ness. He then met vir­tu­al­ly with may­ors, Chair­men, Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cers and Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Units of the 14 Cor­po­ra­tions to as­cer­tain the lev­el of readi­ness, equip­ment sta­tus and of­fer sand for mak­ing ad­di­tion­al sand­bags.

The Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­istry al­so co­or­di­nat­ed with WASA, T&TEC, De­fense Force, Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Ser­vice, Na­tion­al Quar­ries Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed and the Sol­id Waste Man­age­ment Com­pa­ny.

Cor­po­ra­tions on high alert

San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Chair­man Anil Juter­am said dri­vers and work­ers on back­hoes and trucks are on high alert to re­spond to emer­gen­cies. Juter­am said the San­gre Grande re­gion is prone to floods, land­slides and dam­age to homes dur­ing se­vere weath­er events. Equip­ment is on stand­by as he said ad­di­tion­al rain might cause road block­ages in the Matelot and To­co com­mu­ni­ties.

“As we speak, the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit is al­ready equipped and ready to re­spond. Thank God I can say that around two weeks ago, we got an ad­di­tion­al ve­hi­cle to help the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit with res­cu­ing peo­ple. Nine peo­ple can be seat­ed in it. It is a Toy­ota Land Rover. It can go through any ter­rain, wa­ters and every­thing,” Juter­am said.

Af­ter learn­ing of the de­pres­sion, Port-of-Spain May­or Joel Mar­tinez alert­ed the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion’s ad­min­is­tra­tion and en­gi­neer­ing team to pre­pare for ad­verse weath­er. Mar­tinez said prepa­ra­tion in­clud­ed clear­ing drains of de­bris, in­spect­ing wa­ter­cours­es, and co­or­di­nat­ing emer­gency shel­ters. The cor­po­ra­tion al­so has sand­bags to share with res­i­dents liv­ing in ar­eas that usu­al­ly flood.

“Any­time you are close to a riv­er, if the riv­er ex­ceeds its banks, then the ar­eas close to the rivers are go­ing to be af­fect­ed. Then you know ar­eas like South Quay are usu­al­ly those that are af­fect­ed to­geth­er with cer­tain parts of Wright­son Road and cer­tain parts of Wood­brook,” Mar­tinez said.

Mar­tinez said the cor­po­ra­tion re­cent­ly not­ed flood­ing in Bournes Road, St James and near the St James Sec­ondary School and will mon­i­tor those ar­eas.

Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Chair­man Dr Allen Sam­my said the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit is on stand­by to as­sist. It in­cludes the crews op­er­at­ing the back­hoes, trucks and dinghies to meet dis­tressed res­i­dents. Sam­my said that the lev­els of rain­fall and winds fore­cast usu­al­ly see fall­en trees in the re­gion. How­ev­er, he said the Fire Ser­vices re­sponds quick­ly.

The Pe­nal Sec­ondary School and the Wood­land Hin­du Pri­ma­ry School are on the alert to ac­com­mo­date res­i­dents in cas­es of emer­gency evac­u­a­tions.

But giv­en Tues­day’s floods in the Bar­rack­pore and Debe com­mu­ni­ties, Sam­my is wor­ried about the im­pact of the im­pend­ing weath­er.

Chair­man of the Ma­yaro/Rio Claro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (MR­CRC) Ray­mond Co­zi­er said there were trucks, back­hoes and sand­bags po­si­tioned in Ma­yaro, Biche and Rio Claro. The MR­CRC will al­so dis­patch a truck to col­lect ad­di­tion­al sand to­day to make more sand­bags for res­i­dents.

While he is not wor­ried about the re­sponse, there is a con­cern for res­i­dents who still have tar­pau­lin cov­er­ing their homes af­ter their roofs were blown off last year. Co­zi­er said they sub­mit­ted doc­u­ments to the Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Self Help since then and are still await­ing re­lief.