Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

While it was a rainy East­er Mon­day for many, some homes and res­i­dents in Phase Four, Beetham Gar­dens, were drenched for more than 12 hours by cas­cad­ing wa­ter from a Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) pipeline, rather than burst­ing clouds.

At least three wood­en homes in Phase Four were flood­ed out by the rup­tured main that sent wa­ter in­to the sky from Sun­day night in­to yes­ter­day evening.

As many dri­vers head­ing east slowed down to ob­serve the more than 20-foot wa­ter foun­tain, some of the com­mu­ni­ty’s chil­dren made the most of the East­er Mon­day mishap by play­ing in the man­made “rain.”

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the af­fect­ed homes, and the own­ers lament­ed that they were left wait­ing for a fix for more than 12 hours.

They said the pipeline has been leak­ing for years on and off, but last night the is­sue was se­vere­ly ex­ac­er­bat­ed.

“Last night, we were in­side, and we heard an ex­plo­sion and the pipe burst. Me and my girl were in­side of the lit­tle house in the back and we had to run out be­cause the pipe is right next to it. Every­thing got dam­aged be­fore we got in­side. Every sin­gle thing.

“My girl­friend is preg­nant at the mo­ment. I have three chil­dren. My daugh­ter, we sent her to my fam­i­ly for a while, and, well, she can’t come back here now be­cause of that,” said Kevon, a res­i­dent who moved to the com­mu­ni­ty three months ago.

He said he would be will­ing to ac­cept any help that mem­bers of the pub­lic or the state may of­fer.

An­oth­er home­own­er, who lives next door to Kevon, cursed his luck.

He said, de­spite hav­ing three sets of tar­pau­lins to cov­er his wood­en home, the wa­ter still leaked through, de­stroy­ing al­most every­thing.

He lament­ed work­ing hard for three years to put up the struc­ture, on­ly for it to be se­vere­ly dam­aged with­in hours.

The area’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive, the mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Laven­tille West, Ka­reem Mar­celle, said his of­fice was the first to con­tact WASA about the is­sue and con­tin­ued to seek up­dates yes­ter­day.

He promised to look af­ter his con­stituents’ in­ter­ests.

“They had to lock off the main to make arrange­ments to make re­pairs. The leak is from the main be­tween phas­es 4 and 5. So, we are fo­cused on try­ing to get the leak re­paired, so res­i­dents can have ac­cess to wa­ter. It is im­por­tant for the sit­u­a­tion to be as­sessed to see how many homes were im­pact­ed, and then we could li­aise with WASA to de­ter­mine if any as­sis­tance or com­pen­sa­tion could be pro­vid­ed,” Mar­celle said, adding that a re­port was al­so made to the San Juan/Laven­tille Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion.

As of 5.20 pm, Mar­celle said he sent a field of­fi­cer to in­spect the pipeline, and the of­fi­cer re­port­ed that some wa­ter was still flow­ing, up un­til that point, so he was seek­ing fur­ther in­for­ma­tion from WASA.

Mean­while, cor­po­rate sec­re­tary of Fish­er­man and Friends of the Sea, Gary Aboud, was al­so among those call­ing on WASA to act.

“We have a sit­u­a­tion where res­i­dents are build­ing lit­er­al­ly on a WASA line … WASA, I al­ways com­pli­ment you, but you have got to come to our res­cue. It’s just not right that we should be so waste­ful. It’s not right that law­less­ness should be al­lowed to en­dan­ger the pub­lic good and the peo­ple who need it the most are suf­fer­ing the most,” he said.

Ac­cord­ing to WASA, it as­signed a team to ad­dress the is­sue on Mon­day.

It said it pro­ceed­ed to de­wa­ter the boost­er line, while a tem­po­rary plug was be­ing pre­pared to sta­bilise the leak­ing valve.

In a press re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day evening, WASA con­firmed that a 36-inch trans­mis­sion main sus­tained a sub­stan­tial leak.

It said the leak di­rect­ly im­pact­ed op­er­a­tions at the El So­cor­ro Boost­er Sta­tion, re­sult­ing in ser­vice dis­rup­tions in sev­er­al lo­ca­tions, in­clud­ing Cas­cade, St Ann’s, St James, Co­corite, Bel­mont, Dibe, Dun­don­ald Hill, Wood­brook, Long Cir­cu­lar, Gon­za­les, St Barbs, East Dry Riv­er, Mor­vant, Port-of-Spain, Barataria and Laven­tille.

It said that the boost­er sta­tion will re­sume op­er­a­tions at 50 per cent pro­duc­tion by 6 am to­day, and 100 per cent pro­duc­tion by 9 pm to­day.