KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

It is a har­row­ing time for many Pe­nal res­i­dents as they grap­ple with heavy fi­nan­cial and sen­ti­men­tal loss­es in the af­ter­math of Tues­day’s tor­ren­tial rain. While some took ad­van­tage of the flood­ed rivers by fish­ing for cas­cadu­ra, sev­er­al el­der­ly peo­ple were forced to flee their homes.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed res­i­dents along Good­man Trace yes­ter­day, we found Joanne Raghu­nanan and her rel­a­tives work­ing tire­less­ly to clean her el­der­ly par­ents’ home. Al­though the rain stopped by Tues­day evening, Raghu­nanan’s par­ents had to climb on­to a Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (PDRC) dump truck at 11.30 pm as flood­wa­ters rose as high as two feet in­side their home.

“They had to leave and spend the night there, and this morn­ing when we came home, it was still flood­ed out,” Raghu­nanan said.

Her moth­er, Ina, aged 88, could on­ly sit and watch as a rel­a­tive threw out the wa­ter-soaked couch.

“Every­thing—fridge, stove, wash­ing ma­chine, couch, bed—every­thing soaked up,” Raghu­nanan said. 

Rel­a­tives be­gan bail­ing out wa­ter from the house ear­ly yes­ter­day and ad­mit­ted to feel­ing pan­icked when the rains re­turned around 3 pm, fear­ing more flood­ing was go­ing to hap­pen. Al­though the show­ers were brief, Raghu­nanan’s par­ents and oth­er rel­a­tives had to seek shel­ter again at her broth­er’s home, as their beds, clothes, and fur­ni­ture were wet, the ap­pli­ances un­plugged, and the house was left in dis­ar­ray.

Raghu­nanan said they could not yet es­ti­mate their loss­es, as she and oth­er res­i­dents were still clean­ing and as­sess­ing the dam­age.

Sev­er­al neigh­bours de­scribed it as the worst flood they had ex­pe­ri­enced. They be­lieve that land de­vel­op­ment and back­fill­ing over the years have re­duced the ca­pac­i­ty of al­ready in­ad­e­quate wa­ter­cours­es, which strug­gle to ac­com­mo­date the com­mu­ni­ty’s grow­ing pop­u­la­tion.

Along Good­man Branch Trace, Mo­han Ramkha­lawan said the flood­wa­ters reached just un­der two feet at his par­ents’ home. His el­der­ly par­ents, Sie­u­nath and Tulsie­daye, had to re­treat up­stairs as the wa­ter rose on Tues­day. With no run­ning wa­ter in the area, he spent $400 on a truck-borne sup­ply to help with clean­ing.

“We go through this every sin­gle year, and every­one along this trace was ma­rooned. Every­body has wa­ter in their house, ei­ther one foot, two feet, or what­ev­er; every­one had to clean up,” Ramkha­lawan said.

He added that pro­vid­ing wa­ter should have been a pri­or­i­ty for the cor­po­ra­tion, as well as as­sis­tance in clear­ing sep­tic tanks.

“What­ev­er goes, goes, be­cause my fa­ther is 83, my mum is 73, and they re­al­ly can­not do much. They just have to leave it there. The most we could do was re­move the pump, wash­ing ma­chine, and fridge—that’s it,” Ramkha­lawan said.

Parts of Good­man Trace were im­pass­able, with rivers spilling on­to roads and in­to peo­ple’s homes, leav­ing some res­i­dents ma­rooned since Tues­day. Even on Na­gas­sar Trace, res­i­dents were un­able to en­ter or ex­it the road. In most of Bar­rack­pore, wa­ter had sub­sided, though a few streets re­mained flood­ed. Farm­ers and gar­den­ers were brac­ing for loss­es, as they could on­ly watch some of their crops pok­ing out of the flood­wa­ters.

PDRC vice chair­man Shan­ti Boodram claimed ap­prox­i­mate­ly 10,000 peo­ple in the re­gion had been af­fect­ed by the floods. Boodram added that the cor­po­ra­tion was as­sist­ing res­i­dents by pro­vid­ing clean­ing sup­plies left over from floods three years ago.

Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty CEO Kelvin Ro­main said the util­i­ty di­vert­ed some wa­ter from the Navet wa­ter sup­ply sys­tem to the Pe­nal Rock Road area to as­sist res­i­dents whose homes were flood­ed out. Ro­main said this should as­sist in the clean-up ef­forts. How­ev­er, he em­pha­sised it was a lim­it­ed sup­ply for a short pe­ri­od.