Yvonne?Ba­boolal

Up to mid­day yes­ter­day, "not one bot­tle of wa­ter" had reached the cut off east coast vil­lage of Matelot, which was dev­as­tat­ed by heavy rains Wednes­day, says dis­tressed vil­lage coun­cil pres­i­dent, An­der­son Zoe.

"Right now, we have ab­solute­ly noth­ing in the vil­lage. Noth­ing. Is on­ly chil­dren cry­ing and de­bris. Up to now we have not re­ceived one bot­tle of wa­ter," Zoe told the T&T Guardian via tele­phone be­fore he got cut off.

Tele­phone con­nec­tion to the area has been dis­rupt­ed and there has been dif­fi­cul­ty reach­ing res­i­dents.

Zoe said "every­body" in the vil­lage had re­lo­cat­ed to the Matelot Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre. It was re­port­ed be­tween 150 to 200 homes were dam­aged when roofs blew off and by flood­ing.

"Peo­ple bring­ing food­stuff from their homes and we cook­ing here for every­body. Wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty sup­plies have been cut off and the whole vil­lage de­pend­ing on one 4.000-gal­lon tank at the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre. I don't know how long that will last," Zoe said.

He said none of the ex­pect­ed re­lief sup­plies were brought in­to the area up to that point by air or by sea. The Paria Main Road lead­ing in and out of Matelot was cut off by sev­er­al land­slides and as much as ten feet of mud and de­bris in places.

"One he­li­copter which could car­ry on­ly two pas­sen­gers came to Matelot," Zoe said.

Out­go­ing San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man, Ter­ry Ron­don, and the area's MP, Glen­da Jen­nings-Smith, went in­to the area via he­li­copter on Wednes­day and yes­ter­day.

Zoe al­so lament­ed that no Coast Guard ves­sel had brought in sup­plies for vil­lagers.

"They could bring sup­plies and we could go out and meet them with our pirogues," he said.

But con­tact­ed on that yes­ter­day, De­fence Force pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer, Lt Com­man­der Kirk Jean-Bap­tiste, said Matelot re­lief op­er­a­tions had been tak­ing place on the ground while the Coast Guard had been put on stand-by in case the sit­u­a­tion got worse.

He said the Reg­i­ment's First En­gi­neer Bat­tal­ion had been in­volved in Matelot re­lief ef­forts in con­junc­tion with the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM), Min­istry of Works and the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, through Ron­don and Jen­nings-Smith.

Jean-Bap­tiste said the road was be­ing cleared and re­lief sup­plies, in­clud­ing wa­ter, dry ra­tions, canned foods and mat­tress­es com­ing from the ODPM, are be­ing de­liv­ered to the peo­ple of Matelot.

"No­body is for­get­ting any­body. No­body is ne­glect­ing any­body. I un­der­stand they are anx­ious but re­lief is not al­ways in­stant. It will take time but every­body will be reached," Jean-Bap­tiste said.

He said there was no port or jet­ty in Matelot to re­ceive sup­plies from large Coast Guard ves­sels hence the in­tri­cate ground op­er­a­tions.

The T&T Guardian was un­able to reach Ron­don or Smith, who were in Matelot yes­ter­day, be­cause of dis­rupt­ed tele­phone con­nec­tions.

Work­ers at the San­gre Grande Cor­po­ra­tion said yes­ter­day the road up to Grande Riv­iere, the vil­lage be­fore Matelot, had been cleared of mud and de­bris.

They said a San­gre Grande res­i­dent brought cas­es of wa­ter to the cor­po­ra­tion for Matelot vil­lagers and an­oth­er ex­pressed in­ter­est in do­nat­ing mat­tress­es and used fur­ni­ture.

They said work­ers at the Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion were al­so col­lect­ing items which would be de­liv­ered by he­li­copter from Grande Riv­iere to Matelot.

Avonelle Hec­tor-Joseph, head of the NGO Is There Not A Cause (ITNAC), said they had al­so ini­ti­at­ed ef­forts to help Matelot yes­ter­day via no­ti­fi­ca­tions on their Face­book page.

"ITNAC has a lot of cloth­ing so we are ask­ing peo­ple to do­nate food, toi­letries, clean­ing sup­plies."

She said peo­ple had al­ready pledged to as­sist.

Hec­tor-Joseph said ITNAC planned to arrange with cooks in Cumana to pre­pare meals which could be tak­en to Matelot vil­lagers.

"We al­so have a net­work of doc­tors in Trinidad who are will­ing to of­fer their ser­vices to Matelot vil­lagers if need­ed," she added.

She said ITNAC's main con­cern was get­ting sup­plies to the vil­lage.

"We are wait­ing on the road to be cleared. We are look­ing to get in­to the vil­lage by Sat­ur­day or Sun­day," she said.