KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

As flood­wa­ters crept in­to the Mafek­ing and Bris­tol com­mu­ni­ties yes­ter­day, the Ma­yaro/Rio Claro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion took swift ac­tion, send­ing its staff home ear­ly to pre­vent them from be­ing ma­rooned due to wors­en­ing con­di­tions.

By af­ter­noon, wa­ter lev­els edged dan­ger­ous­ly close to homes, co­in­cid­ing with an Or­ange Lev­el River­ine Alert from the Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice. The alert warned of con­tin­ued rain­fall in­to to­day, like­ly caus­ing rivers to rise even fur­ther. Mean­while, street flood­ing in­ten­si­fied along the Cu­napo South­ern Main Road in Navet Vil­lage.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia by tele­phone, cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Ray­mond Co­zi­er ex­pressed con­cern about the speed at which flood­ing was de­vel­op­ing in parts of the re­gion. While ef­forts were on­go­ing, he feared that per­sis­tent rain­fall could soon es­ca­late in­to a crit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion.

“We have de­cid­ed to close the cor­po­ra­tion and send work­ers home be­cause we do not want them to be trapped here, es­pe­cial­ly those liv­ing in the Ma­yaro and Or­toire ar­eas. Peo­ple are leav­ing to go home now as the wa­ters are ris­ing in the Mafek­ing area,” Co­zi­er said.

Re­cent riv­er clean­ing projects have helped to in­crease ca­pac­i­ty and re­duce block­ages. How­ev­er, Co­zi­er re­vealed that ef­forts in Mafek­ing had hit a se­ri­ous snag. Al­though the cor­po­ra­tion man­aged to clear a sig­nif­i­cant sec­tion of the riv­er that flows through the com­mu­ni­ty, pri­vate landown­ers had de­nied ac­cess to crit­i­cal down­stream ar­eas.

“The work has stopped for a while and that is what is caus­ing the prob­lem be­cause the clear­ing was be­ing done and when it stopped, that cre­at­ed the bot­tle­neck. So when we can get that per­mis­sion to thor­ough­ly clean the whole course, then the work will be re­al­ly ef­fec­tive.”

Over in San Pe­dro, dis­as­ter man­age­ment work­ers re­spond­ed to a home where a roof was par­tial­ly blown off by overnight winds. Else­where, fall­en trees were re­port­ed across the Cu­napo South­ern Main Road, Biche, and Ec­cleville in Rio Claro. Lat­er in the day, a tree top­pled on­to a house in Charu­ma Vil­lage, Biche. The Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit (DMU) cleared the de­bris and car­ried out a dam­age as­sess­ment. Emer­gency re­sponse teams re­mained on stand­by through­out the re­gion, though wa­ter be­gan re­ced­ing in some ar­eas.

In Bar­rack­pore, flood­wa­ters be­gan to rise at Khan­hai Road South and Oropouche South Road. How­ev­er, Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Gowrie Roop­nar­ine con­firmed that no sig­nif­i­cant loss­es had been re­port­ed, as most of the flood­ing was con­fined to streets. Dis­as­ter of­fi­cials al­so re­moved a tree that had fall­en across a road in Table­land.

At Nanan Trace, Bar­rack­pore, res­i­dent Dolchan Chan­darb­han took un­usu­al pre­cau­tions to pro­tect his live­stock. He put his ducks on a height to pre­vent them from swim­ming in the flood­wa­ters that en­tered his yard, de­scrib­ing wa­ter about three feet deep ris­ing be­hind his home.

Mean­while, the Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion was brac­ing for wors­en­ing con­di­tions in Wood­land, where flood­wa­ters be­gan spilling on­to parts of Pluck Road. Fish­er­men near the Su­dama Teerath scram­bled to se­cure their boats as wa­ter surged through the New Cut Chan­nel. Siparia May­or Doonath Mayrhoo de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as pre­car­i­ous.

“Well, by this evening, if it con­tin­ues to rain, Pluck Road will be in a bad con­di­tion. Wa­ter will start en­ter­ing peo­ple’s premis­es,” Mayrhoo said.

He al­so re­port­ed street flood­ing along the SS Erin Road in Erin, adding yet an­oth­er area to the grow­ing list of com­mu­ni­ties af­fect­ed by the un­re­lent­ing weath­er.