JENSEN LA VENDE

For the rest of the week, if you do not live along the North Coast Road from Mara­cas to Blan­chisseuse, don’t at­tempt to trav­el to the area.

The road­way re­mained blocked to ve­hi­cles as ex­ca­va­tors and oth­er heavy ma­chin­ery cleared a moun­tain of rub­ble. Res­i­dents are be­ing al­lowed to ex­it in the morn­ing and re­turn in the af­ter­noon.

While turn­ing away tourists from head­ing to the idyl­lic Mara­cas Bay, res­i­dents and politi­cians for a speedy res­o­lu­tion to clear a land­slip that has sig­nif­i­cant­ly ham­pered trav­el to the area for the past two weeks.

Speak­ing with the me­dia at the site of the land­slip yes­ter­day, one res­i­dent who had to walk past the Min­istry of Works heavy ma­chin­ery to get to his Las Cuevas home, said vis­i­tors were mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for res­i­dents.

Lloyd Say­ers said the in­crease in traf­fic de­layed the work be­ing done by the min­istry.

He said some of the busi­ness­es in the area, such as bake and shark ven­dors were will­ing to “hold some strain” but the in­crease in traf­fic is de­lay­ing the work mak­ing it even more dif­fi­cult for res­i­dents of the area.

“They not help­ing with the con­ges­tion prob­lem here, these vis­i­tors not help­ing. They should stay away at least un­til this is done. Ba­si­cal­ly, we want the peo­ple who not from Mara­cas, who just come to bathe, give us a lit­tle while. Just a two days,” Say­ers said.

His com­ments were echoed by both coun­cil­lor for the area Lyn­don Lara and act­ing Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein.

Lara, in a tele­phone in­ter­view, said busi­ness­es are will­ing to “hold strain”. He said that while some busi­ness­es are be­ing neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ed, the res­i­dents who are us­ing one lane to and from home dai­ly are be­ing se­vere­ly af­fect­ed by the in­creased traf­fic flow from vis­i­tors.

He com­mend­ed the work be­ing done by the Min­istry and the pace at which it was be­ing done. He said po­lice were turn­ing away vis­i­tors on the week­end but mo­torists con­tin­ue to take the scenic trip to see for them­selves the area of dam­age.

Ho­sein, who vis­it­ed the area yes­ter­day said a ge­ol­o­gist, Dr Deryck Gay, is ex­pect­ed to vis­it the area this week and ad­vise how best to per­ma­nent­ly treat with the land-slip­page.

“Our pri­or­i­ty right now, first­ly, is to make it pass­able for the res­i­dents of the area, not the gen­er­al pub­lic. They need to go home. There was a death in here yes­ter­day (Mon­day) and peo­ple had to walk to go through the rocks and go in for the wake,” he said.

The T&T Guardian con­tact­ed Mara­cas Bay Ho­tel yes­ter­day and was told while the num­ber of guests has dwin­dled, the staff have not been af­fect­ed as yet.

Two maxi dri­vers work­ing the North Coast Road route said they have not in­creased their fares which range from $12 to Mara­cas and $20 to Blan­chisseuse.

They added that their main con­cern was the re-open­ing of the road in time for school on Mon­day.

The dri­vers said some max­is op­er­ate a re­lay sys­tem, drop­ping pas­sen­gers clos­est the point of the land­slip where pas­sen­gers walk to the oth­er side and board an­oth­er maxi to take them home.