One ve­hi­cle was swept away and an­oth­er stalled in ris­ing flood­wa­ters along the San Fer­nan­do By­pass yes­ter­day, with fire of­fi­cers res­cu­ing one of the dri­vers.

The burst riv­er banks at the San Fer­nan­do By­pass forced two mo­torists to flee their ve­hi­cles, as the Vista­bel­la Riv­er swelled and pushed ve­hi­cles off the road­way.

As the wa­ter rose, it trapped one ve­hi­cle and pushed the oth­er off the road­way, be­fore it be­came lodged be­tween a slab of con­crete and a WASA main line.

Short­ly af­ter noon, the show­ers came, as did dis­tress calls about waist-high wa­ter from res­i­dents in Co­coyea, Gas­par­il­lo, Scott Street, San Fer­nan­do, and part of Mara­bel­la.

Fire of­fi­cers were at the scene at the San Fer­nan­do By­pass, where Myr­tle Ben­jamin and Tim­o­thy Mo­hammed got trapped in their ve­hi­cle as they drove through the wa­ters and ex­pe­ri­enced the scare.

Ben­jamin had to be hand-lift­ed out of her sil­ver-grey Hyundai sev­en-seater ve­hi­cle, while Mo­hammed said he walked out of his black Sun­ny B13 when the wa­ter lev­el rose and forced him to come to a sud­den stop.

Mo­hammed said he was go­ing to con­duct busi­ness in Mara­bel­la.

He said he lived in Mara­bel­la for a year but had nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced such an or­deal.

“I was com­ing from Siparia af­ter 12 to go to TECU. It had cars com­ing through and the wa­ter was push­ing oth­er cars on­to my car. So, I park my car in the road and I come out,” Mo­hammed said.

He said he called a wreck­er to re­move his ve­hi­cle.

Co­coyea/Tarou­ba coun­cil­lor Tere­sa Lynch vis­it­ed the Tarou­ba area and at­trib­uted cli­mate change as the cause for many in­stances of flash flood­ing. She said sev­er­al ar­eas were af­fect­ed in less than 30 min­utes. Lynch said she would send a let­ter to the Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan to ad­dress in­fra­struc­tur­al works to the wa­ter­course in the area.

“The flash flood­ing was un­prece­dent­ed. I can’t tell you when last we had the banks over­flow­ing on the by-pass, we don’t nor­mal­ly have this.”

The coun­cil­lor urged mo­torists to avoid flood­wa­ters.

“To all mo­torists, it is not worth the risk,” Lynch said.

Just last week (Au­gust 25), An­nan Boysie lost his life while at­tempt­ing to dri­ve his Isuzu D-Max pick­up through flood­wa­ters. Boysie’s ve­hi­cle was washed in­to the riv­er along the M1 Ring Road in St Madeleine, where he drowned.

Yes­ter­day, one res­i­dent in St Joseph Vil­lage blamed the re­cent surge of com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment at Tarou­ba, Tar­o­dale and South Park for the flood­ing.

The man, who asked for anonymi­ty, said: “In the last two weeks, the area was hit four times. What hap­pen when they de­vel­oped Tarou­ba, Tar­o­dale, and South Park, they did not widen the wa­ter cours­es. So, them nar­row, nar­row chan­nel is long ago thing. All that wa­ter can­not pass through them lit­tle cylin­ders. The ar­eas are pop­u­lat­ed and is more peo­ple now.”

Ac­cord­ing to the Of­fice of the Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment, res­i­den­tial flood­ing along the Sir Solomon Hock­ey High­way caused the link road to the San Fer­nan­do By­pass to back up, caus­ing the banks of the Vista­bel­la Riv­er to burst.

Parts of the west­ern coastal ar­eas of Trinidad al­so ex­pe­ri­enced flood­ing fol­low­ing a mid-af­ter­noon show­er. The com­mu­ni­ties of Cou­va, Grand Cou­va and Arou­ca were af­fect­ed.