Chester Sam­bra­no

It was an un­prece­dent­ed dis­as­ter.

On Oc­to­ber 22, 2018, res­i­dents of Green­vale ex­pe­ri­enced flood­ing the likes of which this coun­try had hard­ly ever seen be­fore caus­ing some who left, to nev­er re­turn to their homes.

Two years lat­er, Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the area to see how res­i­dents were cop­ing.

We found Joan­na Mc Don­ald, who lost every­thing she worked so hard for, and while her pos­ses­sions have since been re­stored, the trau­ma of that fate­ful day still haunts her every time it rains.

“So there is al­ways some anx­i­ety go­ing on with­in you per­son­al­ly and you al­ways look­ing out to see if the rain is go­ing to stop, how high the wa­ter would reach, you know that is a feel­ing you can­not get over just like that,” she said.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Nicole Kong ex­plained that she re­placed most of her fur­ni­ture and house­hold ap­pli­ances but lament­ed some things are still out­stand­ing, for ex­am­ple, her cup­boards.

A Greenvale Park resident looks at her discarded furniture in October 2018.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

In ad­di­tion to that, she said some re­pair works are still un­done.

“They left a big hole in my kids bath­room, drainage; they burst it and left that, my gallery the floor is not lev­el, pipes broke the ear­ly part of this year, show­ers were bro­ken from since last year. The work was not up to stan­dard and I am still wait­ing on a change of my kitchen win­dow which was rust­ed af­ter the flood,” she ex­plained.

West of Green­vale, the Orop­une com­mu­ni­ty ex­pe­ri­enced a sim­i­lar fate with the heavy down­pours.

An­nelisa Sobers said she saw the wa­ter com­ing in­to her home but was help­less. She said a play park op­po­site the build­ing in which she lives was un­recog­nis­able un­der the wa­ter.

Now she and her neigh­bours are left para­noid.

“From then to now every time the rain falls we get a bit scared, we start mon­i­tor­ing the road to see if the wa­ter is com­ing high, if it is go­ing down, we does be kind of un­easy.”

How­ev­er, she said in terms of her pos­ses­sions, grants from the gov­ern­ment en­sured she got back on her feet.

Greenvale residents sleep on their rooftops after the severe flooding two years ago.

In pro­vid­ing an up­date, the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) said the berm sur­round­ing Green­vale has been raised a fur­ther 3 feet, ponds were cleaned and dredged, box drains are cleaned month­ly. It added that the Ca­roni Riv­er was dredged up to St He­le­na, an al­ter­nate ex­it road was con­struct­ed and a pump ca­pa­ble of dis­plac­ing 7,300 gal­lons of wa­ter per minute was in­stalled.

In Orop­une Gar­dens the HDC says the Arou­ca Riv­er was dredged and cleaned, the re­ten­tion pond was cleaned, box drains are cleaned month­ly and a pump, same as the one in Green­vale, was in­stalled.

“The HDC will con­tin­ue to work with all our com­mu­ni­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly the most vul­ner­a­ble, to en­sure that our mit­i­ga­tion mea­sures pro­tect life and prop­er­ty,” a state­ment from the HDC said.

The res­i­dents hope that these mea­sures could com­bat the force of na­ture if it ever comes knock­ing on their doors again.