An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

As res­i­dents of Diego Mar­tin and Pe­tit Val­ley cleaned up yes­ter­day af­ter Sat­ur­day’s dev­as­tat­ing rains, which flood­ed homes and busi­ness­es with sev­er­al feet of wa­ter in some ar­eas, dark­en­ing skies sent many rush­ing to get sand­bags, fear­ing a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive day of flood­ing.

An­gry over the ab­sence of Cab­i­net of­fi­cials hours af­ter hun­dreds were flood­ed out, res­i­dents crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment and de­mand­ed bet­ter per­for­mance and ser­vice. One woman who has been liv­ing in the vicin­i­ty of North­ern Hard­ware, Diego Mar­tin Main Road, for over 30 years, ex­pressed shock over the sud­den and wide­spread flood­ing that had af­fect­ed the north-west­ern penin­su­la.

While wait­ing anx­ious­ly for work­ers from the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit (DMU) of the Diego Mar­tin Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (DM­RC) to load ten sand­bags in­to their car, the sis­ters, who chose not to re­veal their names, ex­pressed that they had nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced any­thing like what had oc­curred on Sat­ur­day. One said, “It was hor­ri­ble. The en­tire house was flood­ed out.” In­di­cat­ing that they were fright­ened be­cause more rain was fore­cast for yes­ter­day, the women hur­ried­ly left to re­turn home and take what­ev­er pre­cau­tions they could to pro­tect their prop­er­ty. Over at Chu­ma Mon­ka Av­enue, Pe­tit Val­ley, sev­er­al res­i­dents were wash­ing and clean­ing cars that had been sub­merged in flood wa­ters. Ken­ny Os­wald said his Toy­ota Prius, which he pur­chased last De­cem­ber, had been to­talled and would now have to be writ­ten off, while at least four feet of wa­ter had filled his home.

Invit­ing Guardian Me­dia in­to the apart­ment, which re­mained wa­ter­logged yes­ter­day, he es­ti­mat­ed that his dam­age amount­ed to over $100,000. The se­cu­ri­ty con­sul­tant said this was the first time he had ex­pe­ri­enced this type of weath­er phe­nom­e­non. He was crit­i­cal of the area’s drainage sys­tem as he be­lieved the poor in­fra­struc­ture was to blame.

Agree­ing the un­reg­u­lat­ed high-rise and hill­side hous­ing de­vel­op­ments in Diego Mar­tin and Pe­tit Val­ley were to be blamed in part for Sat­ur­day’s floods, he added, “Trinida­di­ans are a dirty peo­ple. We throw rub­bish all over.”

He begged every­one to do bet­ter, as in­dis­crim­i­nate dump­ing of garbage, old ap­pli­ances, and oth­er items in rivers and wa­ter­cours­es had con­tributed to the flood­ing. An irate res­i­dent whose hus­band was de­nied com­pen­sa­tion fol­low­ing the 2012 floods said she was dis­gust­ed by the lack of re­sponse by gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials to yes­ter­day’s floods.

Re­veal­ing the trades­man had lost all his tools, then, she said, up to 11 am yes­ter­day, no one had come to as­sess those liv­ing at Chu­ma Mon­ka Av­enue. Ri­car­do Hillaire, who lives at Bagatelle, said he rushed to as­sist peo­ple in the area. Hav­ing re­turned ear­ly yes­ter­day to help peo­ple clean up, he ex­pressed anger and dis­sat­is­fac­tion at the lack of re­sponse from the au­thor­i­ties.

Con­trac­tor Matthew Pariag, who al­so lives on the street, called on those in pow­er to do more. He stat­ed that since they paid their tax­es on time, they were en­ti­tled to re­ceive a cer­tain lev­el of rep­re­sen­ta­tion and sup­port.

Dis­heart­ened by the re­spons­es of those whom he said had been elect­ed to serve them, he said up to 11 am, “Cor­po­ra­tion can’t come down; no­body can’t come down. The roads are in a mess and need to be washed down; peo­ple’s homes were af­fect­ed.”

He de­mand­ed an­swers, “Where’s the help? Where’s the lit­tle sup­port?” He urged those in au­thor­i­ty “to show some kind of con­cern for the peo­ple liv­ing here.” Over at Crys­tal Stream Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School, Glo­ria Av­enue, which stands on the bound­ary bor­der­ing both Diego Mar­tin and Pe­tit Val­ley, ground floor class­rooms had to be washed and sani­tised.

A team of Cepep work­ers ar­rived at the school from as ear­ly as 7 am, sweep­ing mud and slush out while oth­ers washed and sprayed fur­ni­ture and walk­ways. A thick lay­er of slush and mud cov­ered the school­yard, so fire ser­vices were as­signed to wash the premis­es ahead of to­day’s class­es.

Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral MP Symon de No­bri­ga toured sev­er­al ar­eas that had been se­vere­ly af­fect­ed and as­sured that all ef­forts were be­ing made to pre­vent any dis­rup­tion to schools in the im­pact­ed zones.

He said they had pri­ori­tised the as­sign­ing of re­sources and were go­ing from street to street to as­cer­tain what was need­ed. David De Leon, who lives at Glo­ria Av­enue, did not sleep on Sat­ur­day as he wait­ed for flood wa­ters to sub­side so he could be­gin mop­ping up.

Es­ti­mat­ing the loss of fur­ni­ture and ap­pli­ances at around $10,000, De Leon called on a male rel­a­tive to help him take his wa­ter­logged couch­es out of the small apart­ment.

Hav­ing been af­fect­ed by flood­ing at least six times since he moved to the area in 1995, De Leon erect­ed a wall about three feet high in front of the en­trance to his home.

He said yes­ter­day, “It just wasn’t high enough to keep the wa­ter out.” He said they were caught un­aware and were un­able to take pre­cau­tions as the near­by riv­er filled up quick­ly and spilled in­to the sur­round­ing streets and homes.

He said, “We was watch­ing the riv­er cause we ac­cus­tomed get­ting flood and with­in a half hour time, it start to rise, and with that, it come in the yard, and in the space of five to ten min­utes ... that was it. It caught us off guard.”

Asked what he need­ed ur­gent­ly, De Leon ap­pealed, “I would re­al­ly like the Gov­ern­ment to come in and help us like how they does help down in the South and in oth­er ar­eas.”

He sug­gest­ed the en­gi­neers come in and take a sec­ond look as “Noth­ing much had come of a vis­it be­fore.”

De Leon said the heavy rains had scut­tled his plan to at­tend the launch of Car­ni­val at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah on Sat­ur­day, but he agreed, “God is good. No one was hurt or lives lost.”

At the fam­i­ly home of Mark Roberts low­er down, school books, shoes, fur­ni­ture, cloth­ing, and elec­tron­ics could be seen in the front yard, while the doors to two cars re­mained open in a bid to drain them. As his rel­a­tives bagged de­stroyed items for the garbage, they looked around bleak­ly at keep­sake col­lec­tions that had been lost.

Roberts said wa­ter lev­els had crossed four feet, trap­ping his wife and oth­ers in the prop­er­ty. He said Sat­ur­day’s in­tense rains and the sub­se­quent flood­ing had dri­ven home just how the peo­ple in low-ly­ing ar­eas feel when they are flood­ed out as it had now reached their front door.

Mind­ful that the skies were dark­en­ing as he spoke with re­porters, Roberts be­lieved if the Met Ser­vices had act­ed in a time­ly man­ner to ad­vise the pop­u­la­tion of an ad­verse event, “I would have been on the alert.”

He said it was com­plete “bull*@%t” that no ad­vi­so­ry had been is­sued as the rain­fall event had been con­cen­trat­ed in the north­west of the coun­try, as rain­fall had af­fect­ed the en­tire coun­try, al­beit less in in­ten­si­ty.

Min­is­ter urges res­i­dents: Come and get sand­bags

Mo­bil­is­ing re­sources as the skies cleared yes­ter­day af­ter he met with coun­cil­lors who had been out in the field on Sat­ur­day night, Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral MP Symon de No­bri­ga urged peo­ple to come and get sand­bags as more rains were an­tic­i­pat­ed.

Greet­ing res­i­dents as they col­lect­ed sand­bags at the DMU, even as the rain be­gan driz­zling again, the min­is­ter said they were con­cen­trat­ing on wash­ing streets and en­sur­ing land­slips and land­slides had been ur­gent­ly at­tend­ed to. He said, “We don’t want mud cak­ing and dry­ing, turn­ing to dust, which will now be­come a health is­sue for peo­ple liv­ing on the re­spec­tive streets.”

In­di­cat­ing they were fo­cused on en­sur­ing all schools were ready to re­open to­day, de No­bri­ga said all agen­cies were work­ing to­geth­er to en­sure re­lief was brought in the short­est pos­si­ble time. Look­ing on as Cepep teams shov­elled mud, slush, and de­bris that had cov­ered Princess Mar­garet Av­enue, Pe­tit Val­ley, the min­is­ter spoke with coun­cil­lors Chelsea Mendez and Mar­cia Marslin about com­pil­ing a list of the needs of af­fect­ed res­i­dents.

The coun­cil­lors said they had been work­ing along­side the DMU to ad­dress all con­cerns. They al­so agreed the in­dis­crim­i­nate dump­ing of ap­pli­ances and waste had played a part in the week­end’s floods.

Press­ing de No­bri­ga to re­spond to the claim that un­planned and un­reg­u­lat­ed hous­ing de­vel­op­ments were al­so to blame, he in­sist­ed, “That is a prob­lem across the coun­try.”

But he shared, “That was ad­dressed in large part, in terms of larg­er de­vel­op­ments a few years ago, so you will see for the most part there is al­most a line above which you will not see any new de­vel­op­ments. It does not mean that you don’t have peo­ple in cer­tain ar­eas who have the re­sources to get a back­hoe and start to clear and all sorts of things. And very of­ten, it is be­yond the ca­pac­i­ty of the cor­po­ra­tion to ad­dress it with­out be­ing no­ti­fied. If you are liv­ing in an area and you do see de­vel­op­ment hap­pen­ing, and very of­ten you can tell when some­thing is not ... well, hap­pen­ing sur­rep­ti­tious­ly, no­ti­fy the cor­po­ra­tion, speak with your coun­cil­lors, call them, let them know.”

Lo­cal Govt: We are out and work­ing

Despatch­ing re­sources through­out the night on Sat­ur­day to af­fect­ed ar­eas as they moved to deal with fall­en trees and land­slides and land­slips, the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment (RDLG) mo­bilised re­sources to clean up. They claimed the thun­der­storms as­so­ci­at­ed with the pas­sage of a low-lev­el trough had caused sig­nif­i­cant street and flash flood­ing at Up­per La Puer­ta Av­enue, La Sei­va Road, and Long Cir­cu­lar Road.

Col­lab­o­rat­ing with the Diego Mar­tin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion, the San Juan/Laven­tille Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port (MOWT), the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice (TTFS), and the CEPEP Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed, the RDLG cleared blocked road­ways in Mor­vant, along the North Coast Road, and at Kavi Cres­cent in Pe­tit Val­ley.

The ef­forts, which con­tin­ued un­til 3 am yes­ter­day, were ex­tend­ed to in­clude La Sei­va, Care­nage, Chu­ma Mon­ka in Pe­tit Val­ley, and Crys­tal Stream. Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert al­so praised the ef­forts of ground teams that worked dili­gent­ly to ad­dress the af­ter­math of Sat­ur­day’s floods.