RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

A third day of flood­ing in Wood­land forced vil­lagers to wade through marsh­lands to find a three feet breach in the New Cut Chan­nel and South Oropouche Riv­er which flood­ed the low-ly­ing zones.

Ex­ac­er­bat­ed by rains, the floods stayed stag­nant at Ra­hamut Trace, La For­tune, San Fran­cique and Pluck Road. Frus­trat­ed vil­lagers called on the Works Min­istry to bring in a heavy-du­ty pump to drain the area.

Res­i­dent Tara Jaglal said every year hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars in valu­ables are lost be­cause of peren­ni­al flood­ing.

“When the wa­ter comes up, it takes so long to drain off. We are al­ways un­der pres­sure. As long as we see the rain com­ing, we put every­thing on a height. We are liv­ing in fear. We can­not come out. It’s dif­fi­cult for us,” she said.

She called on the au­thor­i­ties to do bet­ter.

An­oth­er res­i­dent Judy Dook­ie Ra­goo of La For­tune, Wood­land said the floods got worst since 2017. 

Say­ing she con­sid­ered re­lo­cat­ing out of the flood­ed area, Ra­goo said some­thing has to be done to safe­guard the vil­lagers.

At Pluck Road, Jes­si­ca De­onar­ine said over the last 24 hours, the floods have risen.

“The wa­ter is flow­ing over the riv­er bank. The bank is still burst and we are suf­fer­ing here,” she said.

Low­er down the road, Nizam Ho­sein had to ven­ture out of the floods to res­cue his dog. 

“The wa­ter went down but came back this af­ter­noon. The riv­er needs dredg­ing and the riv­er bank needs rais­ing. If they do that, we won’t have floods. How hard is that to do?” Ho­sein ques­tioned.

Last night a team of vil­lagers led by the pres­i­dent of the South Oroupouche River­ine Flood Ac­tion group Ed­ward Mood­ie tried to use sand­bags to build the com­pro­mised riv­er bank. How­ev­er, it failed.

“We have to go through three feet of marsh­lands but the breach in the riv­er bank is com­ing in quick­ly. Wa­ter is gush­ing down to Wood­land too rapid­ly. The sand­bags will wash away,” Mood­ie said.

He called on the Min­istry of Works to bring in a pump in Wood­land. he said the ex­ist­ing pump was not func­tion­al and it need­ed a starter.

Mood­ie al­so said vil­lagers were now pre­pared to pitch a tent and stay out­side the Drainage Di­vi­sion of the Min­istry of Works un­less the riv­er bank is re­stored.

Pres­i­dent of the Wood­land Flood Ac­tion group Adesh Singh said heavy equip­ment brought in by the Min­istry dur­ing in­clement weath­er had caused the river­bank to sink. De­spite pleads from res­i­dents, Singh said the bank was nev­er re­placed.

Chair­man of the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Dr Allen Sam­my said this has been the sixth flood for the year. 

“All of Rock Road, Clarke Road, have wa­ter. We have ar­eas to the back of Dig­i­ty Trace and Kat­wa­roo Branch Trace. On­ly trucks can go through,” he said.

Sam­my said a com­pre­hen­sive wa­ter­course plan was need­ed for the area. He said cli­mate change has caused more in­tense rain­fall which trig­gers flood­ing.