As in­clement weath­er warn­ings from the Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Of­fice were in­ten­si­fied yes­ter­day, some trau­ma­tised Green­vale, La Hor­quet­ta res­i­dents gath­ered the few be­long­ings they have left and pre­pared to leave the area.

Al­though there was even­tu­al­ly no flood­ing in the com­mu­ni­ty, the wa­ter re­ten­tion ponds that over­flowed on Oc­to­ber 19 were close to ca­pac­i­ty from yes­ter­day’s rains and with more bad weath­er on the way many res­i­dents felt it was safer to leave while they still could.

Natas­sia Ram­sa­hai, 34, was one such res­i­dent.

When the flood­wa­ters rushed in­to Ram­sa­hai’s home on Oc­to­ber 19, she grabbed her daugh­ters, two-month-old Tara­ji and 14-year-old Ken­isha and fled, seek­ing high­er ground.

“When I saw the wa­ter start com­ing up in­side the house I grabbed my ba­by and told my old­er daugh­ter to come, we need­ed to get some­where high­er,” Ram­sa­hai re­called.

By the time she got the front door to her home open, the wa­ter was chest high. She said she was un­able to take even an um­brel­la with her.

“I had the ba­by up on my shoul­der and Ken­isha hold­ing on to me and we were able to go to the field next to the house; that was around 6 pm. We stayed there un­til mid­night when Tara­ji’s fa­ther swam from the oth­er side (of La Hor­quet­ta) and met us.”

Al­though the child’s fa­ther was a strong swim­mer, Ram­sa­hai said the risk of wad­ing through the then 10-feet high flood­wa­ters with Tara­ji was too great.

“He told me he couldn’t make it swim­ming with her be­cause she can’t help her­self in any way to hold on. So he and some oth­er peo­ple from the Phase 5 side got a half of a bar­rel and used gar­den hose to string to­geth­er a res­cue line that we used to guide us across af­ter she had been tak­en across in the bar­rel.”

Ram­sa­hai and her chil­dren spent the night in a Good Samar­i­tan’s apart­ment, look­ing on in hor­ror as their home was al­most sub­merged by flood then.

The fam­i­ly had been stay­ing with rel­a­tives in be­tween try­ing to grad­u­al­ly set­tle back in­to their still wa­ter-dam­aged home.

But yes­ter­day when they saw the bad weath­er warn­ings, Ram­sa­hai said she made a quick de­ci­sion.

“I was plan­ning for the last few days to put the mat­tress­es we got on the ground and stay in the house be­cause we are stay­ing with rel­a­tives and right now we are liv­ing out of bags…but with this weath­er who wants to be here? You could nev­er tell what is go­ing to hap­pen…I can’t take that chance again with my chil­dren, I am not go­ing to put my chil­dren through that again.”

In any event, she said there is noth­ing left in her house to se­cure should flood­wa­ters rise again.

“It is just a shell I have now, if the wa­ter have to wash through it, I don’t care…I have noth­ing left to lose in this house.”

An­oth­er Green­vale res­i­dent, who asked not to be named, was pack­ing her car with cloth­ing and oth­er es­sen­tials when the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed the area around 10 am yes­ter­day.

“I can’t stay here, it was too scary the last time and we had to wait too long for res­cue,” she said.

“Even­tu­al­ly, when the Coast Guard boat came in it was on­ly one boat for the whole area and we had to get out in­to the street for them to pick us up…I can’t swim, I can’t even tread wa­ter so I was ter­ri­fied the en­tire time,” she said.

Her neigh­bour, who came out of her home dur­ing the in­ter­view, added, “We saw the wa­ter on the road but when it start­ed to come in­to the house…it hap­pened in min­utes and there was noth­ing we could do. I have my bag packed with clothes since this hap­pened, I am not go­ing through this again.”

An­oth­er res­i­dent and fa­ther of two, who al­so asked not to be named, said, “I think who stays in Green­vale with all these weath­er warn­ings has a death wish. Most peo­ple would try to get home when it’s rain­ing, we have to try to get out of our homes.”

Met Of­fice warn­ing

On Tues­day evening, the T&T Met Ser­vice (TTMS) is­sued an ad­verse weath­er yel­low alert for T&T, fore­cast­ing a 70 per cent chance of heavy show­ers to­day and to­mor­row caused by an In­ter-Trop­i­cal Con­ver­gence Zone (ITCZ.)

But with heavy rain­fall from Tues­day evening in­to yes­ter­day morn­ing, the TTMS is­sued an­oth­er warn­ing at 2.15 pm yes­ter­day, rais­ing the alert lev­el and urg­ing cit­i­zens to be cau­tious and take nec­es­sary steps to pre­serve life and prop­er­ty.

Yes­ter­day, the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment and Pre­pared­ness (ODPM) and the Na­tion­al Emer­gency Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre (NEOC) al­so is­sued sev­er­al warn­ings to those who live in flood-prone ar­eas.

Cit­i­zens were urged to pre-po­si­tion sand­bags around their homes, clean drains and gut­ters around their homes, keep im­por­tant per­son­al doc­u­ments, valu­ables and vi­tal med­ical sup­plies in wa­ter­proof bags or con­tain­ers in an eas­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble area. Cit­i­zens were al­so told to en­sure they have enough food, wa­ter and med­ica­tion for at least three days and make emer­gency house­hold plans.