RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Res­i­dents of Cot­ton Hill Road, Gas­par­il­lo took mat­ters in­to their own hands af­ter heavy rains trig­gered a ma­jor land­slip along the ma­jor ac­cess road, leav­ing the al­ready di­lap­i­dat­ed road­way com­plete­ly im­pass­able.

Armed with a pick­axe and their bare hands, three women and sev­er­al pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school chil­dren built a track. They dug through the de­bris us­ing ma­te­ri­als from the slip­page, restor­ing cru­cial ac­cess for over 50 house­holds re­liant on the road.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, am­putee Sta­cy-Ann Taitt-Brown said the road has al­ways been de­plorable, but heavy rains over the week­end ex­ac­er­bat­ed the slip­page.

“It start­ed off with a mi­nor crack, and as the rains came this week­end, the road col­lapsed,” she re­called.

Us­ing crutch­es to walk along the road, Taitt-Brown said: “We are to­tal­ly fed up. Gov­ern­ment come and go, and it’s the same thing. Cer­tain parts of the road are im­pass­able for low cars. When our ve­hi­cles mash up, who will fix it?”

She said that on Sun­day morn­ing, a ve­hi­cle went down in­to the slip­page.

Taitt-Brown called on Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan to in­ter­vene im­me­di­ate­ly.

“We need some help. PTSC bus­es used to pass here. I am a dis­abled per­son, and if I have to walk, it will take me very long to reach out to the road. If a child gets sick, how is help com­ing to the child? If fire takes place, the ve­hi­cles will not be able to pass,” she said.

Mean­while, res­i­dent Kishen­daye Bernard said while the com­mu­ni­ty wait­ed for of­fi­cial help, they de­cid­ed to do what they could to re­store con­nec­tiv­i­ty.

“Sun­day, when I came home, one of the neigh­bours was burst­ing the top lay­er to make a path for the car to pass. I went home, bathed, and changed, and came back,” she said. “We had to burst the part that broke off to cre­ate a path, but if rain falls again, we have nowhere to pass be­cause it will cave down,” Bernard said.

She re­vealed that the task was gru­elling, es­pe­cial­ly for the chil­dren in­volved.

“The kids’ hands burst up try­ing to patch the road be­cause they are fear­ful to walk out the road. Re­cent­ly, some­one found a dead body,” Bernard said, adding: “It’s un­safe for the kids to walk out the road as well.”

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Elle John, ex­pressed con­cern over what she de­scribed as the decades-long ne­glect of the area.

“This road is like this for many, many years. They made promis­es and nev­er fixed it,” she said.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Vice Chair­man of the Cou­va/Tabquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Hen­ry Awong, said the road fell un­der the purview of the Works Min­istry. He ac­knowl­edged the grav­i­ty of the prob­lem but said the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion’s hands were tied. “We made calls to have that road fixed. There are lots of bad roads, in­clud­ing Cot­ton Hill,” Awong said.

He said min­istry of­fi­cials at­tend the re­gion­al meet­ings, so is aware of the con­di­tion of Cot­ton Hill Road. “The of­fi­cers al­ways say that they have put it on a pro­gramme and they don’t know when it will be. They are say­ing no man­pow­er, no equip­ment, no steam rollers,” he said.

At­tempts to reach Tabaquite MP Ani­ta Haynes for com­ment were un­suc­cess­ful, as she is cur­rent­ly abroad.

Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan did not re­spond to calls or mes­sages.