KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter years of dev­as­tat­ing floods that de­stroyed homes and dis­rupt­ed lives, res­i­dents of flood-prone com­mu­ni­ties in cen­tral Trinidad say they are once again brac­ing for the worst as the rainy sea­son re­turns.

Res­i­dents of Ca­roni, St He­le­na and Kel­ly Vil­lage say every heavy show­er brings re­newed anx­i­ety, as they ques­tion whether enough has been done to pre­vent a re­peat of the de­struc­tion they ex­pe­ri­enced in pre­vi­ous years.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, New Street Ex­ten­sion, Ca­roni, res­i­dent Ram­di­al Ram­dass said the start of the wet sea­son fills him with fear.

“When the rainy sea­son start I does get fright­ened. I does start to trem­ble. I pray for the rain to stop be­cause the ravine does come up high,” Ram­dass said.

Re­call­ing the dev­as­ta­tion caused by the 2018 floods, Ram­dass said his home was in­un­dat­ed by sev­er­al feet of wa­ter.

“Six feet of wa­ter, eight feet of wa­ter. All kind of thing. The whole house flood out. Up to now I ain’t get no mon­ey yet,” he said.

With an­oth­er rainy sea­son un­der­way, oth­er res­i­dents said they are tak­ing pre­cau­tions to pro­tect their homes and be­long­ings.

Ca­roni res­i­dent Bal­ram Ju­lum told Guardian Me­dia that prepar­ing for floods has be­come a way of life, with many res­i­dents clean­ing drains, mov­ing live­stock and plac­ing valu­ables on high­er ground.

“We have to put blocks and thing. Put your fridge and every­thing, couch set. Then you have to put your bed on more height and all kind of thing be­cause when wa­ter come, it don’t come in joke here,” Ju­lum said.

How­ev­er, res­i­dents said these mea­sures pro­vide on­ly tem­po­rary re­lief and that more must be done to ad­dress the root caus­es of flood­ing.

St He­le­na res­i­dent Bim­chan Ganache said: “Re­gard­less of who in pow­er is the same thing. If you look at the drains and thing right now, it cov­er with bush. No­body ain’t clean­ing noth­ing. They ain’t do­ing noth­ing. We feel ne­glect­ed.”

Ju­lum al­so crit­i­cised the main­te­nance of wa­ter­ways.

“Gov­ern­ment peo­ple, they come and they on­ly cut the top of the riv­er. They don’t dredge the bot­tom of the riv­er. If they dredge the bot­tom of the riv­er, we might get a lit­tle ease,” he said.

Ram­dass ex­pressed frus­tra­tion over what he de­scribed as de­lays in flood mit­i­ga­tion works.

“No work not be­ing done or fin­ished. No work not even start yet, so how will it fin­ish? The riv­er need a re­trench and in the back there need clean­ing, so that’s the prob­lem here. The prob­lem here is re­al flood,” he claimed.

Res­i­dents be­lieve in­ad­e­quate drainage main­te­nance and in­suf­fi­cient riv­er dredg­ing con­tin­ue to leave their com­mu­ni­ties vul­ner­a­ble when­ev­er heavy rain­fall oc­curs.

Ganache said riv­er-clean­ing ef­forts have failed to ad­dress the deep­er prob­lems.

“They clean­ing the riv­er but they on­ly clean­ing where peo­ple could see. They not clean­ing the riv­er low­er down to where the deep wa­ter is. Parts of it clean. So when rain fall now, it back­ing up,” he said.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen for a re­sponse to the res­i­dents’ con­cerns but re­ceived no re­ply up to press time.