Flood­wa­ters rose across sev­er­al parts of south and cen­tral Trinidad as the is­lands re­mained un­der an ad­verse weath­er alert.

In the south­ern re­gion, in­dis­crim­i­nate de­vel­op­ment was blamed for the floods which af­fect­ed hun­dreds of fam­i­lies from around 10 am on Sat­ur­day.

As the tide rose around 1:24 pm, sev­er­al parts of Loren­sotte, Lam­orell, Ran­cho Que­ma­do, Pa­lo Seco Set­tle­ment, Sobo, Web­ber Trace, parts of Beach Road, SS Erin Road, as well as Loren­sotte South and North Trace, were un­der wa­ter.

Res­i­dents spent most of the day scam­per­ing to save their pos­ses­sions. 

Theophilus Coutou hur­ried­ly nailed gal­vanise sheets across his gate to keep out the ris­ing floods. 

Rad­i­ca Singh of Hap­py Val­ley Road placed her so­fa on bricks and start­ed bag­ging up cush­ions and oth­er house­hold items. 

Mar­cus Amars­ingh wad­ed through the wa­ters of the SS Erin Road, hold­ing his slip­pers in one hand and a bag with food and snacks in the oth­er.

The Joseph fam­i­ly was ma­rooned in their home and waved to the me­dia shout­ing, "Poor drainage!"

At Lam­orell Trace, Tara Luke and her fam­i­ly were strand­ed as the flood­wa­ters swirled like a riv­er around her house. Luke said a near­by hous­ing project had ex­ac­er­bat­ed the prob­lem.

"We need reg­u­lar dredg­ing of the riv­er. The drainage is ter­ri­ble here," Luke said.

She said every year res­i­dents suf­fer flood dam­age.

A group of young boys walking through floodwaters along the SS Erin Road, Lorensotte, Erin, yesterday.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

"The Erin Riv­er needs to be widened and dredged reg­u­lar­ly. About ten to 12 fam­i­lies are af­fect­ed and we need some­thing to be done right now," Luke said.

Agri­cul­tur­al plots near the South Erin block were al­so cov­ered with wa­ter and res­i­dents safe­guard­ed their live­stock and pets as the floods rose.

Taxi dri­ver Samuel Ger­vais of Are­na Vil­lage, Erin al­so said bet­ter drainage was need­ed.

"Right now I can­not go to work. I have a fam­i­ly of five and we can­not come out be­cause of the floods. We are just stuck here," he said.

Kevin Coutou rode his bi­cy­cle out on the flood­ed roads.

An­oth­er res­i­dent Alana Bap­tiste said de­vel­op­ers were caus­ing the floods.

"They are do­ing what they want down here. They di­vert­ed the riv­er and it is very dis­tress­ing be­cause in­stead of the wa­ter run­ning down the road here, it is back­ing up in­to the trace and com­ing in­to peo­ple's hous­es," Bap­tiste said.

A man uses his bicycle to get through flood waters along the SS Erin Road, Rancho Quemado, yesterday.

KISTIAN DE SILVA

"The peo­ple who blocked the riv­er should be charged. For years now we have been mak­ing re­ports about it and noth­ing has been done." 

Com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist Vic­tor Roberts told CNC3 News that the Erin Riv­er need­ed widen­ing and dredg­ing. He said when con­trac­tors are hired to clean the riv­er, they on­ly clean the ar­eas that are vis­i­ble from the road.

Roberts called on the Min­is­ter of Works to do prop­er su­per­vi­sion of con­trac­tors who are hired to clear wa­ter­cours­es say­ing that too of­ten they do shod­dy work.

Last year, Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan said $100 mil­lion would be spent to clear wa­ter­cours­es to al­le­vi­ate flood­ing. 

Mean­while, at Techi­er Vil­lage, Point Fortin flood­wa­ters al­so rose fol­low­ing per­sis­tent rain­fall. 

Point Fortin MP Kennedy Richards, May­or Saleema Thomas and lo­cal gov­ern­ment coun­cil­lors were on the ground as­sess­ing dam­ages.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so put her teams on stand­by say­ing the ad­verse weath­er alert was set to con­tin­ue and would im­pact neg­a­tive­ly on sev­er­al con­stituen­cies.

Flood­ing was al­so re­port­ed at Cou­va Main Road, Gopaul Lands, Gas­par­il­lo and in sev­er­al parts of Pe­nal and Bar­rack­pore. Poodai La­goon be­came flood­ed and sev­er­al fields of crops were un­der­wa­ter up to late Sat­ur­day.