An­na-Lisa Paul

As clean up-op­er­a­tions con­tin­ue in ar­eas af­fect­ed by floods two week­ends ago, it is es­ti­mat­ed that mil­lions have been lost in dam­age

Mean­while, some home­own­ers have sug­gest­ed a con­ser­v­a­tive fig­ure of $60,000 per house­hold as the amount need­ed im­me­di­ate­ly to help get them back on their feet, while oth­ers have said their dam­age ex­ceed­ed $150,000.

At Gilkes Street, San­gre Grande, res­i­dent Gail Hosten said her home was in­un­dat­ed by flood wa­ters with­in a two-hour pe­ri­od be­tween 10 pm and 12.30 pm on Oc­to­ber 19.

Point­ing to the four din­ing room chairs she man­aged to save be­fore the ris­ing wa­ters set­tled to around four feet, the quick-think­ing moth­er of one and grand­moth­er of two al­so man­aged to pre­vent her couch from be­ing soaked as she hoist­ed it on­to the din­ing ta­ble.

How­ev­er, Hosten, who has lived at that lo­ca­tion for the past 32 years said, “My home has three-bed­rooms and we lost every­thing else. Three beds, three wardrobes and three chest of draw­ers. All our clothes are gone.”

In an in­ter­view, Hosten said she was dis­ap­point­ed with the re­sponse by state agen­cies in the af­ter­math as she claimed they had been “for­got­ten.”

Hosten said the last time she ex­pe­ri­enced any kind of flood­ing in the area was 20 years ago.

Many of the res­i­dents along Gilkes Street ac­cused San­gre Grande South Coun­cil­lor Ken­rick Seep­aul of turn­ing his back on them.

Up to Thurs­day, home­own­ers con­firmed re­ceipt of on­ly a sin­gle crib mat­tress for the en­tire house­hold to sleep on, which they claimed was dis­trib­uted by chair­man of the Ma­yaro/Rio Claro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Glen Ram.

In some places, Guardian Me­dia found house­holds that con­sist­ed of a min­i­mum of four per­sons and a max­i­mum of 16.

San­dra Ramkissoon, who al­so lives at Gilkes Street cried, “I lost every­thing.”

The wid­ow and moth­er of one said, “Every­thing mash up, every sin­gle thing. Wash­ing ma­chine, fridge, every­thing gone.”

Point­ing to heaps of sod­den cloth­ing, wa­ter-logged mat­tress­es and the chip-board wardrobe lean­ing pre­car­i­ous­ly to one side in the bed­room, Ramkissoon said clean-up ef­forts had been ham­pered as she had un­der­gone kid­ney surgery two years and was un­able to do much.

Mak­ing a sim­ple meal of pelau on Thurs­day, Ramkissoon said, “The wa­ter got up so high that on­ly the top of the stove light­ing.”

She added, “All the cup­boards can’t be opened as they are still filled with wa­ter.”

She ap­pealed to the Gov­ern­ment, “If I could get some­thing to buy back a fridge, a ma­chine and stove, we go be good.”

Him­daye Ma­habir said eight-mem­ber fam­i­ly were lucky to have es­caped with their lives.

She said though no one from the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion vis­it­ed, Glen Ram had giv­en them one mat­tress.

This, she said pro­vid­ed a sliv­er of hope and act­ed as an in­di­ca­tor that some­one had re­mem­bered to check for them.

Ma­habir’s daugh­ter be­came emo­tion­al as she re­called plac­ing her chil­dren atop a dou­ble-deck­er bed to keep them from drown­ing.

They both urged the au­thor­i­ties, “To step up and see what they can do for the coun­try.”

Sim­i­lar sto­ries emerged from res­i­dents at Ve­ga De Oropouche and Fish­ing Pond who were among those hard­est hit.

Rod­ney Sankar, 42, who lived his en­tire life at Ve­ga De Oropouche said, “Every year, we get this prob­lem and it is an on-go­ing is­sue. But this year, it was the worse I ever come across. Every­thing loss: my car, bed, ap­pli­ances, clothes, books. We could not save any­thing ex­cept our­selves.”

In the midst of sani­tis­ing his home, Sankar said he was try­ing to bring back a sense of nor­mal­cy to his ten-year-old son.

He said, “That is my main pri­or­i­ty right now, to get him back to nor­mal. Right now he is sleep­ing on the ground and it is cold and un­safe.”

Liv­ing along the banks of the Oropouche Riv­er, Sankar and his fa­ther es­ti­mat­ed that they had lost more than $150,000.

Ramharak Sankar said for the past 46 years, he had heard suc­ces­sive ad­min­is­tra­tions make promis­es to help al­le­vi­ate the flood­ing.

He said, “We not say­ing we won’t get flood­ing, we will but this didn’t bound to hap­pen. It is neg­li­gence by the State.

“What hap­pened was an act of God, not Row­ley, not Kam­la but things could have been done to help elim­i­nate what hap­pened.”

Marie Mar­ryshow of the New Birth Church of God re­mained in shock as she re­count­ed the wa­ter which had filled the church hall and of­fice, soak­ing the mar­riage reg­is­ter and oth­er im­por­tant doc­u­ments.

Op­er­at­ing at Ve­ga Main Road for the past 15 years, Mar­ryshow said she had been forced to take a blow-dry­er to the reg­is­ter in a bid to save the book as they had a wed­ding sched­uled for this week­end.

Mar­ryshow said al­though the wa­ter cov­ered the en­tire church hall and ru­ined some fur­ni­ture and ap­pli­ances, they were grate­ful to be able to re­sume ser­vices days af­ter the dev­as­tat­ing floods as they knew the con­gre­ga­tion need­ed com­fort and guid­ance now.

She said the force of the flood wa­ters was ev­i­dent af­ter it top­pled a wa­ter tank which ser­viced the wash­room in the ad­min­is­tra­tive of­fice, and washed it down­stream from the church. Up to Thurs­day, Mar­ryshow was un­able to say if it could be sal­vaged.

Moth­er of six, La Toya Lam­bkin com­mend­ed MP Glen­da Jen­nings-Smith for her ef­forts to help af­fect­ed res­i­dents.

An­oth­er res­i­dent spoke of the bad treat­ment be­ing met­ed out to res­i­dents at the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion by po­lice of­fices and oth­er of­fi­cials who she claimed, were be­ing turned away—and even beat­en—in some cas­es.

The women said, “The cor­po­ra­tion call­ing peo­ple to come and get ham­pers who weren’t af­fect­ed, who they know, their friends.”

Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Ter­ry Ron­don dis­missed this as he said staff was work­ing around the clock to en­sure that re­lief sup­plies reached those most in need and that ham­pers were packed and ready to be de­liv­ered.

At Ravine Sable Trace, 17-year-old Reis­hana Man­na,of SWA­HA Hin­du Col­lege, con­tin­ued to as­sist her fam­i­ly with the clean-up.

De­spite los­ing her uni­forms, books and lap­top and watch­ing every­thing else de­stroyed in her house, Man­na main­tained her com­po­sure as she shook her head to in­di­cate the floods were in­evitable.

She ad­mit­ted, “It was one stress less,” af­ter teach­ers and stu­dents from her school vis­it­ed and promised to as­sist with get­ting her back in­to school from Mon­day.

She said the in­ci­dent had proven that there were still good peo­ple in the coun­try.

San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Ter­ry Ron­don has al­so found him­self fac­ing le­gal woes aris­ing out of the flood re­lief ef­forts.

This, af­ter he re­ceived a sum­mons to ap­pear in court on No­vem­ber 5, to an­swer the charge of us­ing of­fen­sive lan­guage.

The charge was brought against him by a man he was said to have had a ver­bal ex­change with dur­ing a stam­pede by the pub­lic to ac­cess food items and oth­er sup­plies at the cor­po­ra­tion com­pound ear­li­er in the week.

Ron­don re­ceived the sum­mons last Thurs­day.