OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

San Rafael, Brazil, Tal­paro, Mun­do Nue­vo, Las Lo­mas, and parts of Char­lieville re­main wa­ter­logged yes­ter­day, with homes and roads sub­merged and res­i­dents strand­ed.

Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Ryan Ram­per­sad con­firmed that flood­wa­ters rose rapid­ly by Wednes­day night and re­mained high in­to yes­ter­day morn­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the north­ern parts of the re­gion.

“De­spite a low tide around 10 pm, wa­ter lev­els in San Rafael and sur­round­ing ar­eas didn’t re­cede. Roads be­came im­pass­able, and thou­sands of fam­i­lies were af­fect­ed,” he said.

With CAPE ex­am­i­na­tions on­go­ing, the cor­po­ra­tion worked with the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force to en­sure stu­dents could get to school safe­ly through the flood­wa­ters.

“We start­ed re­ceiv­ing calls from as ear­ly as 4 am from con­cerned par­ents,” Ram­per­sad told Guardian Me­dia.

“We quick­ly mo­bilised army trucks to as­sist with stu­dent trans­porta­tion.”

Ram­per­sad per­son­al­ly ac­com­pa­nied stu­dent Deliana Clark, from Tal­paro to Ari­ma North Sec­ondary School, af­ter she found out about the trans­port late.

“We’ll en­sure she gets back home safe­ly af­ter her ex­am. We’re al­so as­sist­ing stu­dents at­tend­ing Lak­sh­mi Girls’ Hin­du Col­lege from the Cunu­pia area,” he added.

Ram­per­sad an­nounced that the cor­po­ra­tion is al­so dis­trib­ut­ing sand­bags at the Brazil Pri­ma­ry School to sup­port not on­ly its own res­i­dents but neigh­bour­ing com­mu­ni­ties like Waller­field, which falls un­der the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion.

“We don’t be­lieve in red tape dur­ing a cri­sis,” Ram­per­sad said.

“We’re prepar­ing sand­bags at Brazil Pri­ma­ry School and send­ing them wher­ev­er they’re need­ed.”

He al­so praised the cor­po­ra­tion’s work­ers, many of whom re­turned to du­ty af­ter their shifts end­ed to help fill and dis­trib­ute sand­bags across the af­fect­ed re­gion.

Ram­per­sad ac­knowl­edged that al­though some ar­eas re­mained se­vere­ly af­fect­ed, oth­ers were spared thanks in part to the Gov­ern­ment’s Flood Mit­i­ga­tion Pro­gramme, led by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Min­is­ters Khadi­jah Ameen, Jear­lean John and Ravi Rati­ram.

“De­silt­ing work start­ed three weeks ago, and al­ready we’re see­ing re­sults. Ca­paro and Todds Road, which usu­al­ly flood bad­ly, saw less im­pact this time,” Ram­per­sad ex­plained.

How­ev­er, he ad­mit­ted more at­ten­tion is need­ed in ar­eas like San Rafael, Las Lo­mas, St He­le­na, and Kel­ly, where drainage sys­tems re­main over­whelmed.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed sev­er­al ar­eas in the cor­po­ra­tion, where many main roads were still cut off due to flood­wa­ters.

In Char­lieville, Ca­roni/Sa­van­nah/Munroe Road coun­cil­lor Adri­an Ali was on the ground, re­spond­ing to res­i­dents along Ack­bar Road, where about 20 homes were flood­ed due to blocked drainage sys­tems.

“We’re work­ing close­ly with the Min­istry of Works to clear block­ages along the high­way-side drain run­ning from the Chief Brand Walkover to Price Plaza,” Ali said.

An Ack­bar Road res­i­dent, whose home was one of the 20 af­fect­ed, de­scribed the or­deal as over­whelm­ing.

“The wa­ter was ris­ing ex­treme­ly fast high­er than we’ve seen in a long time,” she said.

“I was left try­ing to sal­vage what­ev­er I could. Fur­ni­ture, clothes, even im­por­tant doc­u­ments, every­thing was soaked. It hap­pened so quick­ly, there was bare­ly time to re­act.”

She said this wasn’t the first time her home has been flood­ed and called for long-term drainage so­lu­tions.

“We ap­pre­ci­ate the help, but we can’t keep liv­ing like this every time it rains.”