His­to­ry is re­peat­ing it­self along the Man­zanil­la-Ma­yaro Road on Wednes­day as flood­wa­ters cross the road­way, caus­ing a par­tial col­lapse – an event that oc­curred near­ly eight years ago. In No­vem­ber 2014, mul­ti­ple homes and ar­eas of the road were dam­aged as wa­ters from near­by rivers and the Nar­i­va Swamp flowed freely in­to the At­lantic Ocean. Sig­nif­i­cant coastal ero­sion al­so oc­curred, which is hap­pen­ing yet again this week.

The Man­zanil­la-Ma­yaro Road is now im­pass­able to most mo­torists, par­tic­u­lar­ly small­er and low­er ve­hi­cles, due to sig­nif­i­cant flood­ing with wa­ters up to three feet in some ar­eas. Mul­ti­ple times this past month, var­i­ous points of this 20-kilo­me­tre stretch of road con­nect­ing San­gre Grande, Man­zanil­la and Ma­yaro ex­pe­ri­enced pro­longed floods.

Flood­ing has been re­port­ed at El So­cor­ro South at El So­cor­ro Ex­ten­sion #2, where Min­istry of Works and Trans­port pumps are work­ing to mit­i­gate ris­ing wa­ter. Flood­ing is al­so on­go­ing along Madras Road, St. He­le­na, mark­ing the sixth time for the year and the fifth time in just over a month that res­i­dents have been deal­ing with pro­longed river­ine flood­ing.

East­ern Trinidad re­mains the most af­fect­ed area with flood­ing re­ports from the To­co Main Road at Ve­ga de Oropouche near the North Oropouche Riv­er, Va­len­cia Road to­ward the To­co Main Road, and Fish­ing Pond Road near Seecha­ran Road and Gor­don Miller Land Set­tle­ment which has be­come im­pass­able to small­er and low­er ve­hi­cles.

Fall­en trees have al­so been re­port­ed at Fish­ing Pond Road, San­gre Grande; To­co Main Road, San­gre Grande; Paria Main Road to­wards Grande Riv­iere, with land­slides re­port­ed in this area as well. Land­slides al­so oc­curred at Skin­ner Trace, Siparia, which caused a par­tial col­lapse of the road­way, prompt­ing a di­ver­sion of non-lo­cal traf­fic.

Per­sist­ing rain­fall over the last two weeks has led to very sat­u­rat­ed soils across much of Trinidad, with the lat­est rains this week push­ing many rivers to their lim­it.

At 1:30 PM Wednes­day, No­vem­ber 23rd, 2022, ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment’s Riv­er Lev­el Ad­vi­so­ry, the Ca­roni Riv­er at El Car­men was at 93 per cent ca­pac­i­ty while the Ca­roni Riv­er at Bam­boo Set­tle­ment #3 was at 80 per cent ca­pac­i­ty. The North Oropouche Riv­er at To­co Road was at 84 per cent ca­pac­i­ty. Once the ca­pac­i­ties of ma­jor rivers cross 80 per cent, small­er trib­u­taries and low-ly­ing ar­eas sur­round­ing large rivers be­gin to flood.

Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains un­der an Ad­verse Weath­er Alert (Yel­low Lev­el) un­til 8:00 PM to­day, ac­cord­ing to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice’s (TTMS) Alert #1. In the alert, they warn, “There is al­so a 70-80% (high) chance of heavy show­ers and thun­der­storms that can pro­duce in­tense rain­fall be­tween 25-50 mm and in ex­cess of this amount in iso­lat­ed ar­eas. Gusty winds in ex­cess of 55 km/h may be ex­pe­ri­enced, es­pe­cial­ly in the vicin­i­ty of heavy show­ers/thun­der­storms. Street/flash flood­ing and lo­cal­ized pond­ing are al­so like­ly in heavy down­pours. Seas can be­come ag­i­tat­ed at times in shel­tered ar­eas. Land­slides/land­slips are al­so pos­si­ble in ar­eas so prone.”

The Ca­roni Riv­er Basin and its trib­u­taries are al­so un­der a River­ine Flood Alert (Yel­low Lev­el) un­til 8:00 PM to­day from the Met Of­fice. Ac­cord­ing to the TTMS’s Alert #2, “Riv­er lev­els along the Ca­roni Riv­er are cur­rent­ly above 80%. With pe­ri­ods of heavy show­ers still like­ly over the next 24 hours, this ad­di­tion­al rain­fall can keep the riv­er lev­els el­e­vat­ed, so there re­mains a mod­er­ate risk to pub­lic safe­ty, liveli­hood and prop­er­ty.”