Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va

Hun­dreds of meals, clean­ing sup­plies and clean drink­ing wa­ter were be­ing dis­trib­uted to flood-strick­en ar­eas in south Trinidad yes­ter­day, as res­i­dents be­gan the ar­du­ous task of clean­ing up.

While the floods re­ced­ed in some ar­eas like the Pe­nal Rock Road and Bar­rack­pore, over five feet of wa­ter was re­port­ed to be un­der peo­ple’s homes at La For­tune, Wood­land and Ra­hamut Trace, Debe.

Av­o­cat coun­cil­lor Dood­nath Mayrhoo told Guardian Me­dia peo­ple have been ven­tur­ing out in­to dan­ger­ous flood­wa­ters to buy food be­cause they could not cook. He said teams from the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit had start­ed dis­trib­ut­ing meals from Sub­way, as well as 60 home-cooked meals.

Dhan­raj Gob­erd­han said she was thank­ful to get some­thing to eat.

“With the num­ber of floods we see­ing here, we can­not cook so we are hap­py to get this,” he added.

Mean­while, Pe­nal coun­cil­lor Shan­ty Boodram al­so dis­trib­uted over 200 meals to res­i­dents of Clarke Road, Ra­ju Trace, Naipalia Trace, Teel­mul Trace, Sun­rees Road, Pe­nal Quinam Road and var­i­ous parts of San Fran­cique.

“While the wa­ter has gone down in Rock Road, we are still see­ing some flood­ing in Clarke Road be­cause of il­le­gal landown­ers who have blocked up wa­ter cours­es,” Boodram said.

She al­so urged peo­ple not to leave their homes to get food by wad­ing through floods.

“If you are in dif­fi­cul­ties, please call the DMU or mes­sage me at 741-0757,” Boodram said.

Bar­rack­pore West coun­cil­lor Nicholas Kan­hai al­so dis­trib­uted over 150 meals to res­i­dents.

“We are go­ing to car­ry clean­ing sup­plies in ar­eas where the flood­ing has gone down and we will con­tin­ue to pro­vide bot­tled wa­ter and food items,” he added.

Over 1,000 sand­bags were al­so dis­trib­uted by the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion.

Mean­while, Se­wa In­ter­na­tion­al TT (Se­wa TT), a non-prof­it vol­un­teer-based or­gan­i­sa­tion, al­so as­sist­ed by co­or­di­nat­ing with re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion DMUs and the ODPM to iden­ti­fy ar­eas and in­di­vid­u­als in need of as­sis­tance.

“For now, the vol­un­teers are pro­vid­ing ready-to-eat meals which are be­ing dis­trib­uted to those af­fect­ed. Se­wa TT, with its part­ners Sub­way, Piz­za Hut and KFC, has been able to pro­duce 1,000 meals as of 6 pm on Wednes­day, cur­rent­ly be­ing de­liv­ered in San­gre Grande, San Raphael, Las Lo­mas, Chin Chin, Chase Vil­lage, Cara­pichaima, Car­li Bay, Debe, Pe­nal and Wood­land,” Se­wa TT said.

Se­waTT is urg­ing cit­i­zens to sup­port flood vic­tims by pur­chas­ing a Se­wa Sub. Those in­ter­est­ed in help­ing flood vic­tims can email ad­min@se­watt.org, vis­it their Face­book page at SE­WA TT or con­tact them at the fol­low­ing num­bers: 333-SE­WA (7392), 686-6888 (Re­van), 796-0942 (Anush­ka), or 394-7844.