Chester Sam­bra­no

Lead Ed­i­tor– News­gath­er­ing

chester.sam­bra­no@guardian.co.tt

Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon thun­der­show­ers re­sult­ed in flood­ing in sev­er­al parts of west and north Trinidad.

The show­ers came down short­ly af­ter 2 pm and af­fect­ed ar­eas in the Diego Mar­tin, San Juan/Laven­tille and Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tions.

Among the most af­fect­ed ar­eas were Pe­tit Val­ley in the vicin­i­ty of St Lu­cien Road, West­ern Main Road in the vicin­i­ty of Shore­land, Co­corite, Di­a­mond Vale, La Sie­va Road, Mar­aval and Morne Co­co Road in the vicin­i­ty of Chu­ma Mon­ka Av­enue.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Diego Mar­tin, the riv­er had al­ready burst its banks and sev­er­al streets in the area, as well as in Pe­tit Val­ley, were in­un­dat­ed with wa­ter, putting cars and homes at risk. The Diego Mar­tin High­way was al­so im­pass­able. In Mar­aval, the riv­er had reached full ca­pac­i­ty.

Diego Mar­tin May­or Ake­li­ah Glas­gow-Warn­er said the Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion re­ceived re­ports of flood­ing in Care­nage, Alyce Glen, Mar­aval, Morne Co­co, St Lu­cien Road, Chu­ma Mon­ka and oth­er parts of the re­gion.

“These re­ports have been di­rect­ed to our Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit and arrange­ments are be­ing made to as­sist res­i­dents as need­ed. Filled sand­bags are cur­rent­ly be­ing dis­trib­uted at the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit—2-3 Or­chid Dri­ve, Pe­tit Val­ley. You may al­so reach the unit di­rect­ly at 800-DM­RC (3672). Res­i­dents may al­so reach their coun­cil­lors who are on stand­by to ren­der as­sis­tance,” she said.

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice is­sued an ad­vi­so­ry on its so­cial me­dia pages in­di­cat­ing that heavy rain­fall and gusty winds in Mara­cas Bay re­sult­ed in fall­en trees, land slip­page, and high-ten­sion wires across the road­way at two sep­a­rate lo­ca­tions.

Emer­gency teams, in­clud­ing the Fire Ser­vices, T&TEC, San Juan Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, ODPM, and the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port, vis­it­ed the first lo­ca­tion, cleared de­bris and re­moved one of the fall­en trees. Po­lice of­fi­cers had to di­rect traf­fic, al­low­ing light mo­tor ve­hi­cles to pass.

Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Faris Al Rawi said some ver­i­fi­ca­tion had to oc­cur and CEPEP had been mo­bilised to help clean up. He said the sit­u­a­tion was brought un­der con­trol but blamed the weath­er event on cli­mate change.

“You are look­ing at a world­wide phe­nom­e­non of changes in weath­er pat­terns with in­ten­si­ty of rain­fall and the con­se­quences that come with it,” he said.

Min­is­ter Al Rawi al­so ex­plained why no weath­er alert was is­sued by the T&T Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Of­fice.

“There is no alert be­cause it was such a very short po­si­tion, this did not trig­ger an alert lev­el, and this wasn’t a yel­low lev­el warn­ing for the whole is­land. Met Of­fice is very much on the ball with its alerts and po­si­tions, but we in these po­si­tions have to make sure that we mea­sure the com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­cause you can’t cause pan­ic or dis­tress un­nec­es­sar­i­ly,” he said.