Kevon Felmine

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (PDRC) chair­man Gow­tam Ma­haraj has strong­ly con­demned Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Faris Al-Rawi’s re­cent re­marks, call­ing them “in­sen­si­tive” to res­i­dents grap­pling with the dev­as­tat­ing floods that rav­aged the re­gion this week.

Al-Rawi re­port­ed­ly told an­oth­er me­dia house that Ma­haraj “seems to have found the lost city of At­lantis,” in re­sponse to Ma­haraj’s claims that 10,000 homes were af­fect­ed and un­der­wa­ter. The min­is­ter coun­tered that the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment’s as­sess­ment placed the num­ber at 400 homes im­pact­ed by flood­wa­ter, not nec­es­sar­i­ly dam­aged.

Ma­haraj ex­pressed his dis­may, not­ing that res­i­dents were al­ready trau­ma­tised by their loss­es, while farm­lands in the Poodai La­goon area re­main sub­merged. He said the min­is­ter’s com­ments were dis­heart­en­ing, adding to the frus­tra­tion of af­fect­ed com­mu­ni­ties.

“Some peo­ple feel in­sult­ed and are even con­sid­er­ing a protest to de­mand an apol­o­gy. It is a slap in the face from some­one who has not vis­it­ed the area to see the sever­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion first-hand,” Ma­haraj told Guardian Me­dia.

He con­tin­ued, “The mood is som­bre. Peo­ple are pained by these ag­gra­vat­ed state­ments, es­pe­cial­ly about Pe­nal/Debe be­ing the ‘Lost City of At­lantis.’ Nine miles of road, with com­mu­ni­ties on both sides, are af­fect­ed. The res­i­dents are dis­en­chant­ed, and this makes re­cov­ery ef­forts even hard­er.”

How­ev­er, speak­ing in the Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day Al-Rawi in­sist­ed 10,000 peo­ple were not af­fect­ed.

“Af­ter se­vere flood­ing, with many be­ing af­fect­ed, the Ho­n­ourable Mem­ber is cor­rect­ly re­fer­ring to hun­dreds of res­i­dents, where­as the chair­man of the cor­po­ra­tion has said 10,000 peo­ple were un­der­wa­ter. I say that in the con­text of an­swer­ing this ques­tion to say ex­ag­ger­a­tion helps no one,” he said.

He added all agen­cies had been ac­ti­vat­ed.

“We have, in fact, en­gaged in field as­sess­ments of per­sons af­fect­ed in the ar­eas as is nor­mal af­ter flood­wa­ters sub­side, and the on­go­ing dis­tri­b­u­tion of items in­volves clean­ing sup­plies in ham­pers, food ham­pers, drink­ing wa­ter, mat­tress­es, blan­kets, etc. We have mo­bilised 600 Cepep work­ers every day who are en­gaged on the field. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 7,200 man-hours have been de­ployed al­ready, which will con­tin­ue in op­er­a­tion, Madam Speak­er.”

As rain fell yes­ter­day, Ma­haraj re­port­ed that ris­ing flood­wa­ters at Scott’s Road, Clarke Road, and Pluck Road in Wood­land re­main a con­cern. By 3.15 pm, sec­tions of Clarke Road were still flood­ed.

Ma­haraj said the PDRC had as­sist­ed res­i­dents by pro­vid­ing trans­porta­tion, with ini­tial as­sess­ments sug­gest­ing the flood­ing im­pact­ed ap­prox­i­mate­ly 10,000 peo­ple. He said many homes have de­vel­oped struc­tur­al dam­age, in­clud­ing cracked walls and peel­ing paint, while fur­ni­ture and ap­pli­ances have been de­stroyed.

He said ham­pers were dis­trib­uted by the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment, as well as hot meals from a Ch­agua­nas mosque, KFC, and Sub­way.

In neigh­bour­ing Siparia, May­or Dood­nath Mayrhoo re­port­ed that flood­wa­ters along Pluck Road be­tween San Fran­cique and Wood­land, as well as St John Branch Trace in Av­o­cat, had be­gun to sub­side. How­ev­er, he said, stag­nant wa­ter re­mained a con­cern, com­pound­ed by the Point Lisas De­sali­na­tion Plant shut­down, which he said had left res­i­dents with­out a re­li­able wa­ter sup­ply.

“Even when wa­ter re­turns to the taps, it could take 48 to 72 hours to nor­malise,” Mayrhoo said. “This de­lay could lead to se­vere health haz­ards if res­i­dents are un­able to clean their homes prompt­ly.”

The Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion has been dis­trib­ut­ing clean­ing sup­plies but has not yet pro­vid­ed ham­pers.