Richard Lord

Dev­as­tat­ing, sad and trag­ic. That's how Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­scribed the im­pact of flood­ing on homes in sev­er­al ar­eas in cen­tral and east Trinidad yes­ter­day. "Re­al­ly, re­al­ly dev­as­tat­ing it seems to me. Wa­ter is still on the ground and the rain clouds are still there. The fore­cast is for more rain over the week­end, so I would say it won't get bet­ter right away," the Prime Min­is­ter told re­porters. "All we can do is of­fer im­me­di­ate as­sis­tance, re­lief, in terms of food, drink­ing wa­ter, a dry place to sleep," she added.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar was ac­com­pa­nied by Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment for St Au­gus­tine, Ch­agua­nas West and St Joseph, Prakash Ra­mad­har, Jack Warn­er and Her­bert Vol­ney, re­spec­tive­ly, per­ma­nent sec­re­tary and head of the Pub­lic Ser­vice San­dra Mar­chack, per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­istry Jacque­line Wil­son, chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer in the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM) Colonel George Robin­son. The tour, which last­ed more than four hours, took the of­fi­cials to Pi­ar­co, Val­sayn, Cara­po and Bam­boo Set­tle­ment No 3.

Many res­i­dents of the com­mu­ni­ties were high in praise for the new Prime Min­is­ter's vis­it. Per­sad-Bisses­sar waved to res­i­dents. She hugged ba­bies and spoke with many af­fect­ed res­i­dents. She even dis­trib­uted food ham­pers to some res­i­dents in Bam­boo No 3. There was a res­i­dent there who was shout­ing at the top of his voice, re­quest­ing to speak with St Au­gus­tine MP Prakash Ra­mad­har. Af­ter the man re­peat­ed­ly called for Ra­mad­har's ear, Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­struct­ed him to "go talk with him." The MP heed­ed the PM's ad­vice. Dressed in ap­pro­pri­ate boots, a long kha­ki-coloured pants and a mul­ti­coloured top, Per­sad-Bisses­sar walked in flood wa­ters. She stood on a bridge where rub­ble and oth­er de­bris were trapped un­der it.

At all flood-hit ar­eas she vis­it­ed yes­ter­day, many res­i­dents said they were very pleased to see such im­me­di­ate at­ten­tion be­ing giv­en to the prob­lem. They told her they had nev­er seen a Prime Min­is­ter in their ar­eas be­fore. The young, the el­der­ly and many women all tried to touch the new PM in ap­pre­ci­a­tion. "Let me shake your hands," one el­der­ly woman said as she rushed to greet the new Prime Min­is­ter in Bam­boo No 3. They waved and ex­pressed their grat­i­tude for her vis­it. One res­i­dent said the show­ers had come to clean up the coun­try and to in­tro­duce a gov­ern­ment of change. The Prime Min­is­ter said im­me­di­ate as­sis­tance would be pro­vid­ed to the af­fect­ed fam­i­lies. She said con­sid­er­a­tion was be­ing giv­en to tem­porar­i­ly re­lo­cat­ing some of them.

"De­tails have been tak­en to re­lo­cate them to a house where they can be safe," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said. She con­grat­u­lat­ed the ODPM for its ef­forts to pro­vide re­lief to the af­fect­ed res­i­dents. Food sup­plies, mat­tress­es and oth­er items were pro­vid­ed to the af­fect­ed res­i­dents, the PM added. She met with of­fi­cials of the ODPM on Wednes­day and yes­ter­day. One of the de­ci­sions tak­en dur­ing the meet­ing was to amend the 32-year-old Dis­as­ter Law in T&T. She said con­sid­er­a­tion would be giv­en to pro­vid­ing the ODPM with ad­e­quate re­sources short­ly. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said there was need for a plan to be im­ple­ment­ed to re­duce the in­ci­dence of such flood­ing across the coun­try. One fam­i­ly was ma­rooned in their Val­sayn home since Wednes­day. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said no one had gone in or left that house since Wednes­day. She added, how­ev­er, that the ODPM was ex­pect­ed to "move in" to as­sist the fam­i­ly yes­ter­day.

The new Prime Min­is­ter said "a lot of man-made block­ers and bar­ri­ers" would have con­tributed to the flood­ing across the coun­try. She added that work would be done to the Mamoral Dam and the Ca­paro Riv­er short­ly. Told that one cit­i­zen died af­ter be­ing swept away by flood wa­ters in Tamana hours ear­li­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­pressed re­gret and sad­ness over the fa­tal­i­ty. She said she re­mained con­fi­dent that the new Gov­ern­ment would do all it could to im­prove the qual­i­ty of life for all cit­i­zens. De­scrib­ing her first full day in of­fice as "a work­ing day," Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­vised cit­i­zens: "Keep strong, keep fo­cused. We'll get the job done. It may take a lit­tle longer in some ways, but we'll get the job done."

Jear­lean vis­its Orop­une

Man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of the T&T Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) Jear­lean John vis­it­ed flood-hit res­i­dents of Orop­une Gar­dens, Pi­ar­co, yes­ter­day. It was the third vis­it by John, HDC of­fi­cials and con­trac­tors this week. John said yes­ter­day that the cause of the flood­ing seemed to be a "drainage prob­lem." She said the vis­it was in­tend­ed to get a first-hand view of what was re­quired to cor­rect the prob­lem as the wa­ter had sub­sided. John and HDC of­fi­cials are ex­pect­ed to re­turn to the site at 8 am to­day.