RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

Un­der heavy clouds, Wood­land res­i­dents pre­pared for pos­si­ble evac­u­a­tion as flood­wa­ters from the South Oropouche Riv­er Basin rose, spread­ing across the low­er plains and flood­ing homes.

Ma­jor breach­es along the New Cut Chan­nel in­un­dat­ed ar­eas that were usu­al­ly dry, as wa­ter lev­els con­tin­ued to rise dur­ing the day. Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, the pres­i­dent of the Wood­land Flood Ac­tion Group, Kevin Hard­uar, said res­i­dents re­mained on high alert.

“Many of us have al­ready put our valu­ables on high­er ground, but still the floods came and de­stroyed prop­er­ty,” he said.

He not­ed that teams were mak­ing fre­quent checks on the Wood­land Flood­gates to en­sure the rivers were be­ing drained. Dur­ing the morn­ing pe­ri­od when the tide was low, the wa­ter flowed quick­ly, but Hard­uar said the river­bank breach­es on New Cut Chan­nel were caus­ing the riv­er to flow in­to the plains and en­ter peo­ple’s hous­es.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Pluck Road around 10 am, a flood gauge showed two feet of wa­ter. Ku­mar Sookdeo stood in­side his flood-rav­aged liv­ing room help­less­ly watch­ing as his Christ­mas dec­o­ra­tions and re­frig­er­a­tor float­ed away. Sookdeo’s kitchen cab­i­nets were soaked, and the scent of mud and slush per­vad­ed the area. His dec­o­ra­tions float­ed and clos­ets filled with mud­died cloth­ing stood in a pile in the cen­tre of his once cosy den.

Near­by, res­i­dent Yo­graj De­onath wad­ed through the floods as emp­ty bar­rels, cans, and fish­ing nets float­ed away. De­onath said it was too ear­ly to tab­u­late loss­es but not­ed there was ex­ten­sive wa­ter dam­age, with some be­long­ings sub­merged or washed away.

An­oth­er res­i­dent from San Fran­cique De­o­raj Jairaj said, “We have a lot of dam­age, even the wash­ing ma­chine is un­der­wa­ter, the couch, the kitchen—every­thing is drenched. We are fac­ing a lot right now, so any as­sis­tance will be ac­cept­ed.” For some, evac­u­a­tion felt like the on­ly so­lu­tion.

Res­i­dent Sham Sookralie, who lives along the river­bank, ex­pressed de­spair over re­peat­ed flood­ing.

“I live in that house, and this is the sit­u­a­tion,” he said, point­ing to his wood­en home. “Every time the wa­ter ris­es, I lose every­thing be­cause this is where I live. What­ev­er is with­in reach of the wa­ter is lost.”

Re­flect­ing on the strug­gle, he added, “I would like to move out be­cause every time, this is what we have to go through. No­body would like to live in wa­ter.” Res­i­dents al­so raised con­cerns about the lack of prop­er drainage in­fra­struc­ture.

“We’re locked in, and we can­not stay in­doors,” said Ku­mar Sookdeo, adding, “This is due to the lack of drainage. The wa­ter is just sit­ting in one place. Sand­bags make no sense at this height.”

Mean­while, Siparia May­or Dood­nath Mayrhoo stat­ed that over 50 house­holds were af­fect­ed by the flood­wa­ters, with full as­sess­ments to fol­low once the floods re­cede. 

May­or Mayrhoo laid the blame for the flood­ing square­ly on Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um.

Point­ing to neigh­bour­ing streets that were in­un­dat­ed with flood­wa­ters, Mayrhoo called on au­thor­i­ties to ad­dress the river­bank is­sues.

“If you no­tice, on the op­po­site side, Ack­aloo Trace and Cen­teno Trace are al­so flood­ed. We need a so­lu­tion,” he said. He al­so con­demned Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um for fail­ing to re­pair these riv­er breach­es de­spite re­peat­ed com­plaints.

“There is a breach on the river­bank that is caus­ing the flood­ing due to Her­itage’s neg­li­gence. Her­itage has not done the prop­er work to se­cure the em­bank­ment.”

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um but there was no re­sponse up to late yes­ter­day.