The first steps of re­build­ing af­ter a dis­as­ter are al­ways the hard­est but with the aid of help­ing hands, thou­sands of peo­ple who lost al­most all of their pos­ses­sions af­ter flood­wa­ters swept through their homes are be­gin­ning to slow­ly re­cov­er.

Cit­i­zens abroad are al­so reach­ing out to help and or­gan­is­ing re­lief dri­ves to gath­er much-need­ed sup­plies to send to T&T.

At­ten­tion has now turned to the spread of po­ten­tial dis­eases which come af­ter such nat­ur­al dis­as­ters and clear­ing de­bris from wa­ter­ways. Con­sumers are al­so be­ing ad­vised to be care­ful when pur­chas­ing veg­eta­bles and oth­er or­gan­ic foods.

In com­mu­ni­ties such as San­gre Grande, St He­le­na, Las Lo­mas, La Hor­quet­ta and Ma­yaro, many peo­ple are stock­ing up on aid dis­trib­uted by gen­er­ous cor­po­rate cit­i­zens, small com­pa­nies and in­di­vid­u­als.

They are re­ceiv­ing care pack­ages, clean­ing sup­plies, ba­sic food and wa­ter and ur­gent med­ica­tion.

While not all of the af­fect­ed peo­ple have been reached, au­thor­i­ties are in­sist­ing they will get the nec­es­sary aid.

In sev­er­al vil­lages, mounds of dis­card­ed fur­ni­ture, ap­pli­ances, cloth­ing, books and oth­er items are piled along the road­ways as home­own­ers wash away the thick sludge left be­hind af­ter last week­end’s floods. Oth­ers have filled out forms seek­ing grants pro­vid­ed by the Min­istry of So­cial Ser­vice and are await­ing as­sess­ment by gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.

The co-op­er­a­tion of the State, cit­i­zens, busi­ness­es, NGOs and re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions have spawned a move­ment rarely seen in the coun­try.

Many cit­i­zens have ap­plaud­ed the team­work and long for it to con­tin­ue.

Teams such as the Red Force and for­mer na­tion­al foot­ballers in­tend to do­nate to flood vic­tims.

In an ef­fort to cap­ture this huge out­pour­ing of sup­port to those in need at this time and in or­der to pro­vide a sin­gle plat­form and ve­hi­cle for shar­ing crit­i­cal in­for­ma­tion, the Guardian Me­dia Group has cre­at­ed an ini­tia­tive called Flood of Re­lief.

The plat­form pro­vides a re­al-time av­enue for the shar­ing of flood he­roes, health tips and traf­fic alerts. It al­so high­light­ed the good of our peo­ple.

We will con­tin­ue to use this medi­um to ed­u­cate and in­form the pub­lic on the re­sources avail­able to those af­fect­ed and open a chan­nel through which you can re­spond with sup­port which you may wish to give and the means of do­ing so.

Con­trib­u­tors

Chair­man of the ANSA McAL Group of Com­pa­nies, Nor­man Sab­ga, has an­nounced a one mil­lion dol­lar ini­tial do­na­tion in goods to the ar­eas af­fect­ed.

More sup­port has al­so come through:

The Agos­ti­ni Group of Com­pa­nies

The Pres­tige Group of Com­pa­nies

Sagi­cor

Dairy Dairy

Col­in Sab­ga (Ice­land)

Fire­One Fire­works and Fine­line

Dis­trib­u­tors.

Had­co

Massy

Blue Wa­ters

Glob­al Brands (Piz­za Boys)

Nu­trim­ix

BPTT

Gov­ern­ment Min­istries

Op­tometrists To­day

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress

Coos­al’s Group of Com­pa­nies

San­dals Foun­da­tion

Na­tion­al Flour Mills

Piz­za Boys

Pen­ny­wise

All re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions

Gob­in Prop­er­ty Rentals

Li­ons Club of Ch­agua­nas

Trop­i­cal Pow­er

Sagi­cor

AM­CO

Lensyl

SE­WA TT

Help is avail­able by writ­ing to flood­relief@guardian.co.tt

Fol­low the sto­ries of re­cov­ery at http://www.guardian.co.tt/flood

Fol­low the sto­ries of re­lief at http://www.cnc3.co.tt

Fol­low the re­lief ef­forts at www.http://www.guardian.co.tt

Email us your in­for­ma­tion at flood­relief@guardian.co.tt

vis­it http://www.guardian.co.tt/flood for re­al-time up­dates

Con­tact Nos

NORTH

Fe­li­cia Hold­er - 769-4590

Richard Blazie - 498-6085

Jan­ice Lear­mond-Criqui - 290-8171

CEN­TRAL

An­tho­ny de Four - 688-4012

Lore­na Lu­cien- 388-4330

EAST

Sateesh Ram­saran - 796-8172

Adisa - 347-7260

Christoph Sam­lal - 740-6769

SOUTH

Michelle Davis - 314-8429

BATT re­lief aid ac­counts

The Bankers’ As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (BATT) has cre­at­ed an ac­count in the name of T&T Flood Re­lief.

Each of BATT’s mem­ber banks has opened an ac­count and in­vites the pub­lic to make fi­nan­cial do­na­tions to as­sist these af­fect­ed com­mu­ni­ties in their re­cov­ery process.

List of cre­at­ed Bank Ac­counts

Ac­count num­ber

Sco­tia­bank Trinidad and To­ba­go Lim­it­ed - 4008209

First Cit­i­zens Bank Lim­it­ed - 2536104

RBC Roy­al Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go - 110000003950633

Re­pub­lic Bank Lim­it­ed - 180 802 163 801

JMMB Bank - 6936300401

First Caribbean In­ter­na­tion­al Bank (Trinidad and To­ba­go) - 1005127

Grants avail­able through Min­istry of So­cial Ser­vices

School sup­plies grant: $700 for pri­ma­ry school stu­dents and $1,000 for sec­ondary and ter­tiary schools

House­hold re­pairs: Up to $20,000

House­hold items: Up to $10,000 to re­place a liv­ing and din­ing room set, beds with mat­tress­es, wash­ing ma­chines, stoves, fridges, chest of draw­ers, cloth­ing grant, $1,000 per fam­i­ly mem­ber af­fect­ed

Food Sup­port: $410, $500 and $700 based on fam­i­ly size