RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter grap­pling with dev­as­tat­ing week­end floods, Bar­rack­pore res­i­dents be­gan the ar­du­ous task of clean­ing up their homes as the flood­wa­ters slow­ly re­ced­ed yes­ter­day. 

Streets such as Rochard Road, Pa­pourie Road and New Colo­nial Road were lit­tered with flood-dam­aged items as res­i­dents worked tire­less­ly to re­store their homes. 

CEPEP crews and com­mu­ni­ty groups lent a help­ing hand, as­sist­ing in the daunt­ing task of mop­ping up slush-filled hous­es.

The pre­vi­ous night, the flood­wa­ters had been pumped out, but as the dawn broke, the weari­ness and dis­gust among the res­i­dents was in­ten­si­fied by the stench of dead an­i­mals and flood de­bris. 

A vis­it to a farm at Oropouche South Trace re­vealed a grim scene. The farm was lit­tered with the life­less bod­ies of 3,000 drowned chick­ens, their pens hav­ing been un­able to with­stand the force of the floods.

Neil Dou­glas, a chick­en farmer, shared the heart-wrench­ing ex­pe­ri­ence of try­ing to save the birds as the floods in­un­dat­ed the farm dur­ing the night. 

“I went in the wa­ter and tried to pick them up, but it was no use. I re­alised that didn’t make sense. All of them drowned,” he lament­ed.

Dou­glas added: “Right now, if you dig up the slush, you will find dead chick­ens there. Those chick­ens were ful­ly grown and were sup­posed to be sold to­day (yes­ter­day).”

He at­trib­uted the floods to re­cent drainage block­ages caused by some­one dig­ging drains and al­ter­ing the riv­er’s course, lead­ing to un­fore­seen con­se­quences.

Lawrence Gan­ga, an­oth­er res­i­dent, vivid­ly de­scribed the sud­den rush of wa­ter and the sub­se­quent hav­oc it wreaked in his house. 

“That wa­ter was al­most knee height. In­side the house, it was a dis­as­ter,” he ex­pressed.

With more rain­fall loom­ing, the res­i­dents feared the pos­si­bil­i­ty of fur­ther dev­as­ta­tion and loss.

Si­mon Be­har­ry, who was seen sur­vey­ing the rub­ble left be­hind by the floods, said the del­uge came swift­ly.

“This rub­ble came from the floods. It was float­ing in the road. A vol­ume of wa­ter came down from the forests in Marac and Moru­ga. In less than six min­utes, the wa­ter came down,” he re­count­ed.

Mar­shall Lau­rent, a work­er at the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, said they were try­ing their best to clear the de­bris left by the floods, em­pha­sis­ing the im­por­tance of cre­at­ing pass­able roads for res­i­dents.

Mean­while, the Works Min­istry, in a state­ment, said year-round de­silt­ing had tak­en place to mit­i­gate the im­pact of flood­ing. These ef­forts in­clud­ed works in ar­eas such as the New Cut Chan­nel, Bhag­ma­nia Riv­er, 40 Foot Chan­nel, Coo­ra Riv­er, Mc­Cul­lock Drain, Oropouche Riv­er, Trinidad Riv­er, Black­wa­ter Chan­nel, Duck Pond Riv­er, Teemul Chan­nel, John Pe­ter, Trib­u­taries, Chester Riv­er, and St Louis Rivers.

The min­istry said there were on­go­ing and planned projects, in­clud­ing em­bank­ment re­con­struc­tion and im­prove­ment works on var­i­ous rivers and chan­nels. The min­istry said plans are al­so in place for the New Cut Chan­nel down­stream of Pluck Road in Wood­land, as well as em­bank­ment re­con­struc­tion on the left and right banks of the New Cut Chan­nel up­stream of Pluck Road and Cal­co re­spec­tive­ly.

The min­istry al­so said clear­ing and im­prove­ment works are un­der­way on mul­ti­ple wa­ter­ways, such as the Coo­ra Riv­er, Mc­Cul­lock Riv­er, Chester Riv­er, Oropouche Riv­er, Black­wa­ter Riv­er, Coro­ma­ta Riv­er, Nages­sar Chan­nel, Duck Pond Riv­er, Teemul Chan­nel, St Louis Chan­nels, and Rio Ne­gro Riv­er.