An­na-Lisa Paul

Res­i­dents of George Street, Port-of-Spain, blocked the road yes­ter­day and lit fire to de­bris, as they called on their land­lord—the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC)—to ur­gent­ly at­tend to the sew­er sys­tem which was backed up and over­flow­ing in­to the ground floor apart­ments.

The an­gry res­i­dents com­plained of be­ing fed-up and frus­trat­ed, as they said the prob­lem had been re­port­ed to the HDC since ear­ly De­cem­ber 2022.

Point­ing to the leak­ing man­hole from which raw sewage seeped con­tin­u­ous­ly, the an­gry res­i­dents said the stench was un­bear­able and posed a health haz­ard to the chil­dren and el­der­ly per­sons in the sur­round­ing en­vi­ron­ment.

The site of the seep­age was al­so lo­cat­ed op­po­site the Port-of-Spain Re­lief Cen­tre, which cooks and dis­trib­utes meals to home­less per­sons dai­ly—while the George Street Health Cen­tre is al­so lo­cat­ed me­tres away.

One res­i­dent said, “This prob­lem go­ing on two months now. We called for help from the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion and the HDC...al­so WASA, and none of the par­ties de­cide to come out and help.”

Ad­mit­ting they felt there was no oth­er al­ter­na­tive but to burn de­bris and block the road in or­der to high­light their plight, one an­gry man said, “Chil­dren have to pass here to go home, as it have two schools just up and down the street.”

He said, “The raw sew­er­age is com­ing back up in the pipes and toi­lets and bath­rooms of the ground floor apart­ments, as it have nowhere to go.

“When the peo­ple on top flush...it have nowhere to go and it is flow­ing back in­to the af­fect­ed apart­ments.”

A preg­nant woman liv­ing in one of the af­fect­ed apart­ments has been forced to bar­ri­cade her­self in a bed­room and is al­so un­able to open the win­dows, as the man­hole is out­side her apart­ment.

More than 20 apart­ments have so far been af­fect­ed.

An an­gry woman claimed many of the chil­dren liv­ing in the apart­ment com­plex had de­vel­oped wa­ter blad­ders and skin rash­es as a re­sult of the pro­longed ex­po­sure to the raw sew­er.

Many of them at­tend the East­ern Boys’ Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School and East­ern Girls’ Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School, which are lo­cat­ed on op­po­site ends of George Street.

An el­der­ly res­i­dent, con­fined to a wheel­chair on the sec­ond-floor apart­ment, ap­plaud­ed the move to block the road, as he looked on from his tiny bal­cony.

Un­afraid of the po­lice of­fi­cers who ar­rived to quell fur­ther protests, one man said the ac­tion will con­tin­ue un­til re­lief mea­sures are im­ple­ment­ed.

“If we not get­ting no help, we go­ing back to the streets again and this time, we will be go­ing right around the com­mu­ni­ty...Duke Street, Nel­son Street, Prince Street...right through we will be go­ing un­til they come to help us be­cause we need it.

“Chil­dren com­ing from school don’t know that is too-too wa­ter and they run­ning through it.”

Short­ly af­ter the me­dia ar­rived and spoke with some of the res­i­dents, they took up brooms and be­gan clear­ing the smoul­der­ing rub­ble so the street could be re­opened to ve­hic­u­lar traf­fic.

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to con­tact HDC Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor Jay­selle Mc­Far­lane but there was no re­sponse up to late yes­ter­day.

Ed­i­tor's Note

A pre­vi­ous ver­sion of this sto­ry re­ferred to Jay­selle Mc­Far­lane as the Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Man­ag­er. The er­ror is re­gret­ted.